What is the difference between platypus and spiny anteater?

There are several differences between anteaters and spiny anteaters, better known as echidnas.

• Spiny anteaters are also known as echidnas and they are native to Australia, with another species found on the island of New Guinea, and they are distantly related to the platypus. True anteaters are native to South America and are related to armadillos.
• Like their name implies, spiny anteaters are covered covered with a layer of fur and many sharp quills, which are one of their main defenses. True anteaters are covereds in fur.
• Echidnas have a very wide range of habitat - they are able to live in deserts, grasslands, forests, suburban fringes, coastal heath, rainforest, mulga scrub, even sub-alpine mountainsides. Anteaters are restricted to grasslands, forests and rainforests.
• Echidnas are one of that unique group of mammals known as "monotremes", or egg-laying mammals (the platypus also belongs to this group). During breeding season, the female develops a rudimentary pouch, into which she lays a single egg, where it is incubated. Anteaters are placental mammals, giving birth to live young.
• The only two similarities between true anteaters and echidnas is 1. their diet, consisting mostly of termites, extending to ants, and occasionally to insect larvae. 2. Another similarity is that they are both mammals, i.e. warmblooded vertebrates which feed their young on mothers' milk.