Fauna of Australia species are nocturnal and many arboreal. Two of the five living species of monotreme occur in Australia: the platypus and the short-beaked echidna. The monotremes differ from other mammals in their methods of reproduction; in particular, they lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. The platypus—a venomous, egg-laying, duck-billed amphibious mammal—is considered to be one of the strangest creatures in the animal kingdom. When it was first presented by Joseph Banks to English naturalists it was thought to be so strange that it was a cleverly created hoax. The short-beaked echidna is similarly strange, covered in hairy spikes
Saint Bathans mammal Worthy et al. 2006 tentatively deemed the Saint Bathans mammal as a theriiform, being more derived than morganucodontans, eutriconodonts and monotremes but not as much as multituberculates, on the basis of its femoral anatomy. As the phylogeny of non-therian mammals has undergone multiple shifts since its description, new studies might be necessary. The Bannockburn Formation depicts a warm temperate or subtropical lakeside environment, surrounded by herbaceous peat–swamps. Casuarinas, araucarias, podocarps, eucalypts, palm trees and southern beeches are among the various plant species known to have grown here. As today, the local vertebrate fauna was dominated by birds: early moas and