Sandra Emmons, Age 13, Of Shreveport, La., for her question:

Where does the duckbill platypus live?

In the distant past, marsupial animals lived over most of the earth. Most likely there were also other animals similar to the strange platypus who lays eggs and nurses her babies. In most lands, thebe gentle animals perished when the hungry carnivores developed.

But the big meat eating animals never reached Australia and its nearby islands. There the pouched marsupials survived in great numbers. There, too, the strange platypus survived. It makes its home in the muddy stream banks of Australia and Tasmania.