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Maternal care of platypus nestlings (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
- Source :
- Australian Mammalogy. 42:283
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- CSIRO Publishing, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Maternal care in platypuses has never been rigorously studied due to the difficulty in locating and accessing nesting burrows. Here we describe the maternal behaviour of a captive female platypus and the growth and development of her offspring over 11 breeding seasons. We located a nesting burrow and inserted a camera to record the activity and behaviour of the female and her offspring. We also measured the female’s food intake during lactation. The ages of the offspring were assigned to developmental milestones including opening of the eyes and development of pelage. Twins (n=4) were left alone for periods longer than 24h by the mother at an earlier age than single nestlings (n=2). The dietary energy intake of the breeding female was more than double that of non-lactating females in the last month of lactation, indicating the large energy requirements of milk production. The mean age of young at emergence from the burrow was 128±1 days and in 60% of nestlings emergence occurred after weaning. This suggests a rapid transition from a completely milk-based diet to a diet of aquatic macroinvertebrates. The techniques we developed have allowed us to study maternal care in platypuses and the development of nestlings, both of which were previously only poorly understood.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
0303 health sciences
biology
Offspring
media_common.quotation_subject
Zoology
Monotreme
biology.organism_classification
Burrow
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Energy requirement
03 medical and health sciences
medicine.anatomical_structure
biology.animal
Lactation
parasitic diseases
medicine
Weaning
Animal Science and Zoology
Reproduction
Platypus
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
030304 developmental biology
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 03100049
- Volume :
- 42
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Australian Mammalogy
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........3b0ecfe69aa80a01a44ddc9ce5a792c6