toothed platypus

An extinct species of huge, carnivorous platypus about a metre long – the largest platypus ever found – has been discovered in the famous Riversleigh World Heritage Area of Queensland. Unlike the living species, it had fully functional teeth that may have been used to kill and consume a wide range of animals that lived alongside it in ancient pools and lakes. The new species, named Obdurodon tharalkooschild, has been identified from a highly distinctive tooth found in a deposit that has not been dated yet, but is likely to be between 15 and 5 million years old.

“Discovery of this new species was a shock to us because prior to this, the fossil record suggested that the evolutionary tree of platypuses was a relatively linear one,” says UNSW’s Professor Archer.

But instead of a fluffy little duckling emerging from her egg, her child was an amazing chimera that had the bill, webbed hind feet, and egg-laying habit of a duck, along with the fur and front feet of a rodent—the first platypus.