monotremen.adj.

1822 Philos. Mag. Aug. 146 M. Geoffroy read some observations, by which he endeavours to prove that the Monotreme are oviparous, and that they ought to form a 5th class in the circle of vertebrated animals.

1827 E. Griffith et al. Cuvier's Animal Kingdom III. 263 The Montremes are found only in New Holland.

1835 W. Kirby On Power of God in Creation of Animals II. xxiv. 483 This Subclass is divided into two Orders, Monotremes, and Marsupians.

1868 R. Owen On Anat. Vertebr. III. xxxii. 567 The thymus in Monotremes lies between the episternum and the beginnings of the vessels from the aortic arch.

1884 Rep. Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 777 Mr. Caldwell..had discovered that the Monotremes were oviparous.

1928 G. H. Wilkins Undiscovered Austral. 11 There are the two unique and extraordinary creatures, the egg-laying mammals or monotremes—the platypus and the echidna.

1939 E. D. Laborde tr. E. de Martonne Shorter Physical Geogr. (rev. ed.) xx. 308 Australia, which has been isolated since the cretaceous period, has preserved families of mammals, marsupials and montremes, which up to that time had inhabited the Old World.

1995 New Scientist 14 Oct. 19/1 The new monotreme is only the second fossil mammal found in Australia from the Mesozoic Era... The other, Steropodon, is also a monotreme, but has more in common with the modern platypus and echidna than with the new fossil.

1865 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 155 649 In all marsupial and monotreme animals examined..it lies above them.

1943 C. Barrett Austral. Animal Bk. 25 A motherless monotreme bairn, discovered by the scrub near Cranbourne, Victoria, was brought..by the finder, who was puzzled by the little naked creature not unlike an animated rubber toy.

1991 S. J. Gould Bully for Brontosaurus vi. xviii. 274 He employed 150 aboriginals and collected nearly 1,400 echidnas—quite a hecatomb for monotreme biology.