Discovered: 150-year-old platypus specimen that proved some mammals lay eggs

The newly discovered collection includes echidnas, platypuses and marsupials at varying life stages from fertilised egg to adolescence

Discovered: 150-year-old platypus specimen that proved some mammals lay eggs (Jacqueline Garget/University of Cambridge/PA)

Jars of 150-year-old platypus and echidna specimens that prove some mammals lay eggs have been discovered at an English museum.

Collected in the late 1800s by the scientist William Caldwell, the tiny samples were found in the stores of Cambridge’s University Museum of Zoology.