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Animal Themes
Mammals
Freshwater
 Platypuses

Platypuses
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 4 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   8.8

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    echidnas, fraud, lakeshores, lengthy, long-beaked, mammary, monotremes, short-beaked, tunnel-like, undercoat, well-designed, wetsuit, presented, wean, hence, self-defense
     content words:    British Museum, Natural History

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Platypuses   
1     Can you picture an animal that has a beak shaped like a duck's, a tail like a beaver's, and a bone structure like a reptile's? Oh, did I also mention that this strange-looking animal lays eggs? Well, if you have a hard time picturing what this animal may look like, you are not alone.
 
2     When the British settlers in Australia had their first sighting of the platypus in 1797, they could not believe what they saw. Was the platypus a bird, a mammal, or a reptile? Upon examining a specimen, scientists back in England said it was a fraud. They suspected that the specimen had been made by stitching many different animals' body parts together. One scientist even used a pair of scissors to try to pry the "duck's beak" off the specimen! This very first platypus specimen, with scissor marks still visible, is preserved and on display in the British Museum of Natural History in London.
 
3     After many lengthy debates that lasted for almost a century, scientists finally confirmed that the platypus is a mammal. They classified it, along with the other two egg-laying mammal species (the short-beaked echidna and the long-beaked echidna), as monotremes.

Paragraphs 4 to 10:
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Animal Themes
             Animal Themes

Mammals
             Mammals

Freshwater
             Freshwater


Animals
    Amphibians  
 
    Birds  
 
    Deserts  
 
    Fish  
 
    Freshwater  
 
    Grasslands  
 
    Insects  
 
 
    Invertebrates  
 
    Mammals  
 
    Oceans  
 
    Polar Regions  
 
    Rain Forest  
 
    Reptiles  
 

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