Sunday, March 25, 2012

Predatory Behavior





The platypus predatory behavior consumes about 12 hours of their lives everyday due to their need to eat an estimated twenty percent of their body weight in food each day (that’s a lot!). In order to achieve this, the platypus must spent the majority of its day hunting for food. As I mentioned in a previous post, the platypus is a carnivore and its main prey are shrimps, worms, crayfish, fish eggs, mollusks, and larvae. The platypus catches its prey while on a dive under the water. Platypus either catch their prey while they are swimming or actively dig their prey up from under the riverbed. Once caught, the platypus stores its prey inside its cheeks while it swims back up to the surface to actually consume the food.  As for what predators the platypus themselves have to watch out for, it is a rather lengthy list that includes birds (like hawks and eagles), wild cats and dogs, crocodiles, and foxes. The main predator of the platypus, however, sadly used to be humans.  Before they were protected by laws set in place as conservation measures, humans used to hunt the platypus for their unique fur that is warm and soft yet also water resistant. Unfortunately humans are still a danger to the platypus because of our destruction of their natural environment and especially our unsafe use of fishing nets in freshwater locations (they drown in the nets that are left behind). While the use of nets in freshwater bodies has been officially band it is still practiced by insensitive fishermen today and therefore still poses a risk to our beautiful platypus friends.  

PLATYPUS CATCHES A YABBY VIDEO!:

1 comment:

  1. Wow, that's crazy that they devote 12 hours of their day to searching for food! I can't imagine spending half of my life that way! I wonder why they need to eat 20% of their body weight in food every day? You think that they would evolve to prey on larger food sources to reduce the amount of time they needed to spend on finding food every day...

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