The platypus eats small freshwater animals, which it hunts at night, underwater, with its eyes and ears closed. It finds and catches underwater creatures that are swimming or sunken in the bottom mud by tracking them down with its sensitive bill, which can detect electricity and motion.

Platypus are found only in mainland Australia and the southern island of Tasmania. Platypus are distributed along Australia east coast, to about 500 miles (800 kilometers) inland, from Cook-town, Queensland to Melbourne, Victoria, and into Tasmania.

Imam al-Baqir, (PBUH) said: Allah, Almighty and Glorious, revealed to Prophet Shuayb: I will punish one hundred thousand people of your folk. Forty thousand people are from their vicious ones but sixty thousand of them are from their good-doers. Shuayb inquired: These are the vicious (who deserve punishment), but what about the good-doers? Then, Allah Almigh, revealed to him: They (the good-doers) associated with the sinners and did not become angry because of My wrath.

Imam as-Sadiq (PBUH) said: All good deeds totally, including even the struggle in the Holy War in the way of Allah, comparing with enjoining right and forbidding wrong, is like a small amount of saliva compared with a deep ocean.

The platypus flat, beaverlike tail is used as a swimming rudder, a shovel, for fat storage, and by the mother for keeping eggs and young warm. The tail can store up to fifty percent of a platypus total load of body fat. Female platypus use the tail to carry leaves to the nesting chamber, and both sexes use it to sweep loosened soil out of the way when digging. The tail has no fine fur, only coarse, bristly hair on its upper surface to aid in carrying or sweeping.

Imam Ali (PBUH) said: Enjoining good is the most excellent deed of people.

Both sexes have the spurs when they are young. At four months of age, male spurs are protected by a covering of whitish, chalky material that sloughs off completely by the end of the first year of age. Females bear smaller, useless spurs, without venom, that they shed by ten months of age.

Imam Amir ul Mumineen Ali (PBUH) said to Imam al-Hasan and Imam al-Husayn (a) when Ibn Muljam (the curse of Allah be upon him) struck him (fatally with a sword): ... Fear Allah (and again) fear Allah in the matter of Jihad, (struggle for the Holy War), with the help of your property, lives and speech in the way of Allah...

Both hind limbs of the male bear hollow, pointed, poison spurs mounted on the insides of the ankles, just above the heels. There are venom glands, one in each thigh, called the "crural glands" because they are controlled by the crural nerves, which are major motor nerves of the hindlimbs. The glands secrete venom that is passed through ducts to the sharp spurs, which the platypus can erect like jacknife blades and stab into other animals.

The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Whensoever my Ummah undertake to enjoin right and prohibit evil and associate in establishing benevolence, they live happily and prosperously; but when they stop doing so, the blessings will be taken off from them.