Search Results - Monotreme

They are conventionally treated as comprising a single order Monotremata, though a recent classification proposes to divide them into the orders Platypoda (the Platypus along with its fossil relatives) and Tachyglossa (the echidnas). The entire grouping is also traditionally placed into a subclass Prototheria, which was extended to include several fossil orders but these are no longer seen as constituting a natural group allied to monotreme ancestry. A controversial hypothesis now relates the monotremes to a different assemblage of fossil mammals in a clade termed Australosphenida.

Monotremes are among the small number of mammalian species known to be capable of electroreception.

Like other mammals, monotremes are warm-blooded with a high metabolic rate (though not as high as other mammals, see below); have hair on their bodies; produce milk, through mammary glands, to feed their young; have a single bone in their lower jaw; and have three middle ear bones.