Egg- laying Mammals

Mammals lay eggs? What!?!? Well, not all mammals lay eggs, only two are known, the duck-billed Platypus and the echidna (a-KID-nah). The platypus living in only Australia, and the echidna living in both Australia and New Guinea you may find that these animals are quite hard to find in the wild. Though these animals live in similar areas, their lives are very different. The echidna has spines for self defense, is mainly an insectivore but sometimes eats fruit, lives in forests, and nests in burrows in moderately dry areas, where as the platypus has a "sting" for self defense, lays it's eggs fairly close to riverbanks, eats fish, and looks completely different! It is hard to believe that these animals are in the same family! (not a family with a mother and father and child, but a family in the scientific sense (domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, variety) if you know what I mean.) Yet these animals are related! Distantly, but related.