Thanks for visiting! A few years back, I briefly covered a throwaway Yahoo! article about how âcarbs will make you lose weightâ because so many readers had emailed about it. It turned out that the âcarbsâ in the article were resistant starch, a type of carbohydrate that our digestive enzymes cannot break down. Iâll admit now, with regret, that I didnât look as deeply into the matter as I might have.
Prehensile tails acts like a fifth limb. Monkeys are the most famous creatures with prehensile tails and many tourists on safari have realized this a few moments too late after things vanished before their eyes. Most other animals have non-prehensile tails. source: Kirill Kurashov/shutterstock.com.
The body and the broad, flat tail of the platypus are covered with dense, brown fur that traps a layer of insulating air to keep the animal warm. The fur is waterproof, and the texture is akin to that of a mole. The platypus uses its tail for storage of fat reserves (an adaptation also found in animals such as the Tasmanian devil and fat-tailed sheep). It has webbed feet and a large, rubbery duck-like snout.