Monotreme
Monotremes (/ˈmɒnətriːmz/) are prototherian mammals of the order Monotremata. They are one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria). Monotremes are typified by structural differences in their brains, jaws, digestive tract, reproductive tract, and other body parts compared to the more common mammalian types. In addition, they lay eggs rather than bearing live young, but, like all mammals, the female monotremes nurse their young with milk.
Monotremes are a subgroup of the Australosphenida, a clade which contains other related extinct mammals from the Jurassic and Cretaceous of Madagascar, South America and Australia.
The only surviving examples of monotremes are all indigenous to Australia and New Guinea although there is evidence that they were once more widespread, as Monotrematum is known from the Paleocene of South America.[5] The extant monotreme species are the platypus and four species of echidnas. There is currently some debate regarding monotreme taxonomy.
The name monotreme derives from the Greek words μονός (monós 'single') and τρῆμα (trêma 'hole'), referring to the cloaca.
Like other mammals, monotremes are endothermic 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.
In common with reptiles and marsupials, monotremes lack the connective structure (corpus callosum) which in placental mammals is the primary communication route between the right and left brain hemispheres.[6] The anterior commissure does provide an alternate communication route between the two hemispheres, though, and in monotremes and marsupials it carries all the commissural fibers arising from the neocortex, whereas in placental mammals the anterior commissure carries only some of these fibers.[7]
