(YouTube/The Guardian Australia)
A Tasmanian woman captured on video the battle between two male platypuses (Ornithorhynchus anatinus).
The resident, named Esme Atkinson, noticed these animals near the shore of the dam while working on the farm.
The males pursued each other, rotated around their axis and periodically raised themselves, leaning on their tail, in order to strike the enemy with their hind legs.
Atkinson watched the platypuses for about twenty minutes - and all this time the fight did not end.
And the next day, she met one of the males who was scratching intensely, perhaps because he was worried about the wounds received during the battle.
Male platypuses regularly fight in anticipation of the mating season, which begins in August-September.
In this way, they establish the hierarchical position and boundaries of territories and, as a result, determine which of them will get the opportunity to mate with a large number of females.
At the same time, the fighting individuals strike each other with poisonous spurs on their hind legs.
However, because platypuses are secretive and active mostly at night, people rarely see them fighting and even less often videotape them.
Sources:
- The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/14/they-did-not-let-up-rare-video-of-platypuses-fighting-captured-by-tasmanian-farmer
- BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-65912350
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