At the end of The
Nutmeg of Consolation, Dr. Maturin at last has an opportunity to
see a living platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus, aver. wgt. 2.5-4
lbs. Aver. lgth. 2 ft.). The Doctor would have been studying in Paris
when the first specimen of the platypus arrived in Europe. That was
a female, so he was not aware that the male platypus has a poison spur
on his heels. They are the only mammal that has the ability to produce
poison, so his injury was totally unexpected. Platypuses are one
of the two only living monotremes; the other is the echidna. Both
are natives of Australia, but their lineage goes back in the fossil record
over 100 million years. Monotremes lay eggs, unlike the rest of us
mammals. They do share the rest of mammalian characteristics (hair,
warm blood, production of milk, etc.), so they are genuinely members of
our class. They live an aquatic life, obvious from their webbed feet,
in streams, feeding on worms and other invertebrates. The males used
their poisoned spur to protect their territory and their family.
The Doctor never got to observe
this next mammal in the wild, but did have one of its teeth.