![]() It is one of the few species of venomous mammals, as the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom, capable of causing severe pain to humans. Like other monotremes, it senses prey through electrolocation. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. The platypus is the sole living representative or monotypic taxon of its family ( Ornithorhynchidae) and genus ( Ornithorhynchus), though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. Weirdness aside, platypuses are remarkable.The platypus ( Ornithorhynchus anatinus), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. All of them are prolific eaters, eating at least a quarter of their body weight every day. ![]() Females use their bodies and their tails to maintain a perfect incubation temperature for the eggs in any weather. Males have a venomous spur in their hind legs that they use to fight other males. They are nocturnal, and they use their flexible bill filled with electrosensors to detect buried prey underneath the murky water. (His achievement was offset somewhat by the thousands of platypuses slaughtered in the process.)Īlong with echidnas, platypuses are the last of the monotremes, or egg-laying mammals. Finally, in 1885, a Scottish Zoologist, William Caldwell, collected and described what were without any doubt platypus eggs. Reports of egg laying by aborigines and early colonists were dismissed by the learned men of Europe, but to be fair their skepticism was fueled by many fake or misidentified eggs. The babies lick the milk from specialized skin on the mother.Īnalysis of the body convinced anatomists that platypuses laid eggs, but many also assumed that since they nursed the young must be live born. So many anatomists wanted to add their two cents that their study became known as the “Platypus Industry.” It wasn’t until the 1830s that Westerners became aware that platypuses nurse their young, though they lack nipples. Researchers were baffled that the animal had a cloaca (a combined excretory and reproductive opening found in reptiles and birds) even though it was a mammal. The more nineteenth century biologists learned about platypuses, the more confused they became. Platypus babies lick the milk from specialized skin on the mother. ![]() The name stuck even though these creatures were renamed Ornithorhynchus anatinus, which, for the record, means duck-like bird snout. The dried bill strongly resembled an actual duck beak, and its first Latin name was Platypus anatinus: the flat foot duck. Most early scientists correctly assumed it was a mammal based on its fur, but working only from skins they knew nothing else. The platypus was first described in literature by George Shaw in the British Museum, who, along with many of his contemporaries, suspected it was a hoax. The platypus was well known to Aboriginal peoples, but the first Westerners to lay eyes on it thought it was some kind of large, stubby aquatic mole. In fact, platypuses are so unusual that it took taxonomists more than eighty years just to decide what they are.Īs described by biologist Brian Hall in BioScience, the story begins in late eighteenth/early nineteenth century Australia. The potential value comes from the sheer weirdness of the milk proteins they are unlike any other on Earth. But according to new research they might actually be lifesavers proteins in their milk have potential to be a new and powerful antibiotic. The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR.
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