1. Teinolophos, from Australia, is the earliest known monotreme.

2. A monotreme is a animal that lays eggs and suckles its young.

3. The Australian short-beaked echidna, a monotreme, is one of the oldest living mammals on earth.

4. A monotreme, like a reptile, has one opening, or orifice, for the passage of eggs, sperm, feces, and urine.

5. I would dream to do this in a monotreme, to find out if we could have a narcoleptic platypus.

6. There were once hundreds of monotreme species, but there are only five left: four species of echidnas and the duck-billed platypus.

7. The genetic sequence of this Aussie monotreme (a type of mammal) is detailed in the May 8 issue of the journal Nature.

8. A previous study of early monotreme fossils had suggested the platypus and the echidna diverged more than 110 million years ago, far longer than the genetic analysis indicates.