Comments on: There is nothing quite as enigmatic as a platypus

“There is nothing quite as enigmatic as a platypus”

Large Marge — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:09:55 -0800

A bunch of scientist got together and set about to decode the platypus genome, and guess what!?! "What we found was the genome, just like the animal, is an amazing amalgam of reptilian and mammal characteristics with quite a few unique platypus characteristics as well". “You have got these reptilian repeat patterns and these more recently evolved milk genes and independent evolution of the venom. It all points to how idiosyncratic evolution is.” “We have microRNAs that are shared with chickens and not mammals as well as ones that are shared with mammals, but not chickens.” Also, apparently, male platypi have venomous spikes on their heels that can kill dogs! For those who can't access this really really awesome Nature write up here's a really cool factoid: every sperm gets a set of all Xs or all Ys. Despite the similar designations, none of the platypus X chromosomes resembles the human, dog or mouse X. “The sex chromosomes are absolutely, completely different from all other mammals. We had not expected that”

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:17:51 -0800

male platypi have venomous spikes on their heels that can kill dogs! Another thing I share with the platypus.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:19:07 -0800

Not 'platypi', 'platipuses'. The word is English via Greek, not Latin. OK that aside: yeah, they're bloody weird things eh?

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:20:07 -0800

of course I mean 'platypuses'....

By: T.D. Strange

T.D. Strange — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:25:00 -0800

It's like God just took all the spare parts and made a new animal!

By: rtha

rtha — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:46:43 -0800

When I was a kid, I thought platypuses were cool. But it's taken me several decades to appreciate just how incredibly weird they are. They produce milk, but they don't have nipples. The young suckle it through the skin on their mother's belly. Evolution is cool.

By: Mister Cheese

Mister Cheese — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:47:50 -0800

It's like evolution just took a path that resulted in a creature with mammalian and reptilian traits!

By: darksasami

darksasami — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:50:44 -0800

Wouldn't that make it "platypodes"?

By: optovox

optovox — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:53:16 -0800

posted by Mister Cheese It's like evolution just took a path that resulted in a creature with mammalian and reptilian traits! And that creature is called Hans Reiser.

By: JujuB

JujuB — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:06:54 -0800

Great trivia question...What is the only mammal that lays eggs?

By: bunglin jones

bunglin jones — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:12:10 -0800

Great trivia question...What is the only mammal that lays eggs? Is that a trick question?

By: [insert clever name here]

[insert clever name here] — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:19:39 -0800

[sigh] I was really excited by these links, only to have it ruined by the second comment of the Nature article: " Could it be that the reason it doesn't quite fit the rules is that it's genetic code is unique using the basic building blocks in a different combination assigned at it's inception? Rather than a series of mutations which are incapable of supplying useful variation, all the genes were planned assemblies through the the cellular growth, division & recombination. Rather than an accident, could the Duck Bill Platypus be on Purpose?" Do these people just sit there, scouring the web for "evolution" keywords to put their propaganda into?

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:41:55 -0800

"platypus venom" is not a concept previously known to me

By: jewzilla

jewzilla — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:50:46 -0800

I don't think it should take that much technology to discover that platapuses are weird.

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:03:33 -0800

Venom? PLATYPUSES HAVE VENOM?! I'm so angry at the world for not telling me this before.

By: hades

hades — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:16:18 -0800

I have wished for a tiny supply of platypus venom with which to disable my enemies ever since I read this:

Spicer (1876) cites a case where "The pain was intense and almost paralysing. But for the administration of small doses of brandy, he would have fainted on the spot: as it was, it was half and hour before he could stand without support: by that time the arm was swollen to the shoulder, and quite useless, and the pain in the hand very severe".

Pain that requires a nerve block to stop. Respect. Unlike their neighbors the koalas, platypuses are hard.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:19:31 -0800

Missing from the AP report and Nature article but written in the Sydney Morning Herald was - "What we've found is really interesting, because the platypus is born without an immune system at all, unlike humans," Dr Belov told AAP. "So we went looking for molecules that would produce immunity. What we found is molecules that develop into their own microbials (broad spectrum antibiotics)."

By: padraigin

padraigin — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:21:05 -0800

The young [platypuses] suckle it through the skin on their mother's belly. While for humans, it only seems that way.

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:25:02 -0800

"Monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic"

By: aeschenkarnos

aeschenkarnos — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:26:30 -0800

Do these people just sit there, scouring the web for "evolution" keywords to put their propaganda into? Apparently. The forums to which anti-evolutionists post can be seen as a sort of ecosystem, in which the spurious arguments they post live. In some forums, arguments find more receptive readers, or are couched in a way that makes it more difficult to see the error, and those arguments are reinforced and prosper. In others, the arguments are quickly shot down, or deleted outright, and as such have little chance to affect the discourse of the forum. Over time, those arguments that succeed, or at least fail more slowly, become primary anti-evolutionist talking points, and those that fail quickly, or lead to obvious contradictions with stronger arguments, become extinct and in time anti-evolutionists will deny that anyone ever said them, or that those who did say them, aren't in any way the same anti-evolutionists that are currently active; they will claim that those arguments were more like primitive precursors to the more sophisticated rhetoric they currently purvey.

By: Catfry

Catfry — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:31:21 -0800

Ok all the other things I could sorta shrug of and say 'yea, heh, it is kinda weird huh?' But no friggin immune system?!

By: [insert clever name here]

[insert clever name here] — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:33:25 -0800

Unlike their neighbors the koalas, platypuses are hard. They may not have venom, but Koalas are mean little bastards.

By: one_bean

one_bean — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:51:06 -0800

If Creationists are using the platypus as proof of intelligent design, then I guess we just have to disagree about the meaning of intelligent.

By: flippant

flippant — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:53:57 -0800

Those are some killer heels, right there.

By: [insert clever name here]

[insert clever name here] — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:55:11 -0800

One_bean, you just hit upon the idea behind Unintelligent Design.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:23:46 -0800

Ever tried to run with a koala's claws in your chest and thighs and its teeth in your crotch? It's not possible. I'll keep that in mind.

By: The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:18:37 -0800

The Platypus is the missing link between reptiles and mammals? BRILLIANT!!!! How fucking hillarious and oddly right is that?! Sometimes I love the universe...almost as much as I love Platypuses!

By: jeffburdges

jeffburdges — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:41:15 -0800

I'm not sure it's that weird that the sex chromosomes differ, this is also true of birds, no? [...] Nice, U.D.N is great. lol But the FSM gets the press.

By: Jakey

Jakey — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:55:03 -0800

[insert clever name here], that koala link had me crying with laughter. Brilliant!

By: Jilder

Jilder — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:02:20 -0800

Platypussies make me very proud to be an Australian. Here, even sweet cuddly looking critters that look like they should be called Mittens or Rosiepetal are venemous pain machines.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:20:01 -0800

What if God smoked cannabis? Hit the bong like one of us? He designed the platypus So he must have been stoned...

By: jammy

jammy — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:04:48 -0800

thanks for posting this, Large Marge - monotremes are just all kinds of interesting I've always hoped that someone would write a good scifi story about monotremes evolving into some humanoid type form... then again, if you've got a venomous heel spike & your body synthesizes readymade antibiotics, what other tools would you really need?

By: dobbs

dobbs — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:50:22 -0800

Perhaps this is Kirk Cameron's much sought after CrocoDuck!

By: jfuller

jfuller — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:51:52 -0800

> It's like evolution just took a path that resulted in a creature with mammalian and reptilian traits! > posted by Mister Cheese at 12:47 AM on May 9 [+] [!] Not just once or twice, either. The entire order Therapsida has generated decades of are-they-reptiles-are-they-mammals-are-they-in-between wrangling. I wish we had a few more examples of the order to sequence, to see if their genomes look at all platypus-like.

By: sindark

sindark — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:15:09 -0800

The Platypus is a strange and intriguing creature. Some of the odder things about it: * They have ten sex chromosomes, out of a total of 52. Males are ‘XYXYXYXYXY.’ * They swim using only their two front legs, though the back two are also webbed. * Only the left ovary of females is functional. * They have no visible ears. * They only use their eyes while above water. * Underwater, they can detect electric fields generated by muscular contractions. * They lose their three teeth before they first leave their mother’s burrow. * They forage for twelve hours a day. * They have a body temperature five degrees lower than most other placental mammals. * Females lactate through pores in their skin. Milk pools in grooves located on their abdomens.

By: Lord Chancellor

Lord Chancellor — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:35:12 -0800

then again, if you've got a venomous heel spike & your body synthesizes readymade antibiotics, what other tools would you really need? Wings.

By: workerant

workerant — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:28:02 -0800

darksasamiWouldn't that make it "platypodes"? "Platypoda", I think. I've heard this argument regarding octopus -> octopoda, but my knowledge of Greek grammar is somewhat limited. Okay, very limited.

By: Tehanu

Tehanu — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:34:08 -0800

There is nothing quite as enigmatic as a platypus Humans are pretty fucking weird, too.

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:49:57 -0800

I would just like to state, in an apologized-for and partial derail, that the background to the Unintelligent Design site [insert clever name here] linked to is amazing.

By: A dead Quaker

A dead Quaker — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:52:56 -0800

I knew about the venomous spur thanks to the Patrick O'Brian "Master and Commander" books. The crew visits Australia at some point, where Maturin, following his scientific curiosity, gets spurred by a platypus.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:07:35 -0800

"platypus venom" is not a concept previously known to me It should be the name of a potent vodka-based drink. Or maybe slang for some kind of street drug. Or, better yet, the title of a speed-metal album. Platypüs Venöm!

By: Viomeda

Viomeda — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:08:49 -0800

dirigibleman: Not 'platypi', 'platypuses'. The word is English via Greek, not Latin. Ah. Then you mean to say it's Platypoi. Er, well, no, I guess. Platypoi is it. But *it's* Platypous. I always forget to decline correctly. At least I think it's second-declension; the Platypon species has a pretty obvious ending. Maybe we should ask one, though. Hey, you! Platype! Yeah, you over there sharpening your venomous heel-spikes! How exactly does one refer to Platypois?

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:51:37 -0800

The plural of pous is podes. But that's Greek. English can do what it likes.

By: fantabulous timewaster

fantabulous timewaster — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:30:36 -0800

I have seen "octopodes" used to mean multiple species of octopus, as opposed to individual octopuses. But I think there is only one sort of platypus.

By: Large Marge

Large Marge — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:39:38 -0800

Jeff Burges: platy-whatever-they are (even their name is weird) are different than birds because they have 10 chromosomes. Birds are kinda like humans, except dudes carry ZZ chromosomes and ladies have a ZW pair. Here's an article from a while ago that explains it somewhat.

By: lekvar

lekvar — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:04:17 -0800

Venomous? Venomously cute, maybe.

By: cellphone

cellphone — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:33:52 -0800

The Platypus is the missing link between reptiles and mammals? BRILLIANT!!!! How fucking hillarious and oddly right is that?! Sometimes I love the universe...almost as much as I love Platypuses! posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:18 AM on May 9 [+] [!] The link was never missing.

Comments on: There is nothing quite as enigmatic as a platypus

“There is nothing quite as enigmatic as a platypus”

By: dirigibleman

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