These chemicals causes nerve cells to calcify, which leads to excruciating pain.Īccording to researchers who investigated the chemical composition of this venom, the same toxic peptides are found in some reptile venom. Get too close to a male platypus, and he could use spurs on his back legs to jab you with venom. The platypus is also one of the few mammals that produces venom. Interestingly, sharks use the same strategy to track prey from a distance.Īnd electroreception isn’t the platypi’s only weapon. This electroreception helps platypi hunt worms and other invertebrates under water. “It is therefore likely that the platypus knows how far away an electric source is, whether it is moving and in what direction,” they write. Because a platypus can receive signals across at least two points on the bill, the platypus is able better judge the location of the signal. Using tiny electrodes, the researchers showed how electric signals traveled from points on the edge of the duck bill to a platypus’s cerebral cortex. In 1992, scientists from Monash University in Victory, Australia reported that the duck bill acts as a sort of electric-signal receiver for the platypus. Illustration from “The central projection of electrosensory information in the platypus” by A Iggo, J E Gregory, and U Proske for the Journal of Physiology Using electrodes to test electroreception in the duck bill.
As far as we know, monotremes, including enchinas, are the only mammals with electrosensory organs. That means platypi can sense the electric impulses coming from other animals. In the 1980s, scientists discovered that platypi could find prey through electrolocation. The platypus weirdness doesn’t stop there. In fact, biologists think that traditional mammal nipples evolved from those kinds of modified pores. These days, we know that platypi do lay eggs and they do express milk through pores on their skin. They argued passionately about the biology of platypi when few people had actually seen one. British and French naturalists thoughy themselves the experts on animal anatomy and classification. Saint-Hilaire actually disagreed, saying the milk theory went against “the very plan of nature.” This debate was really an issue of geography. Owen’s theory confirmed what scientist Lauderdale Maule had written after dissecting a platypus in 1832: “When skinning a female platypus while still warm … it was observed that milk oozed through the fur on her stomach.”
#PLATYPUS EVOLUTION META SKIN#
The milk ran through two canals under the skin and was expressed when baby platypi suckled. Instead of secreting milk through nipples, platypi secreted milk through pores on their bellies. He argued that platypi also had a unique kind of mammary gland. A mammal that laid eggs was too fantastical, like a unicorn or a sphinx.īritish scientist Richard Owen went one step further. But this was hard for many scientists to believe. After dissecting a female platypus, Geoffroy changed his mind and argued that the platypus did lay eggs. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the first naturalist to classify the platypus as a monotreme, believed the mammals had live young, not eggs. For a long time, zoologists thought egg-laying mammals were a myth. “Mono” means “single” and “treme” means “hole.” This refers to the cloaca, a opening that a male uses to pass sperm to a female during sex. Platypi (also called platypuses by joy kills) are monotremes, meaning they are mammals that lay eggs. Even back then, people knew that platypi had some bizarre biology. Churchill’s request had actually been sparked by worldwide headlines of the successful breeding of the first platypi in captivity, a feat that would not be repeated for 55 years. If I had been a Brit back then, I would have been thrilled. They named this platypus Winston, and sent him in a specially designed “platypussary” with “50,000 specially chosen worms.” Churchill kept the mission secret, perhaps in an effort to spare the public disappointment in case the platypus didn’t survive the journey. Note the line: “If you decide to keep it near you, you must send your cat Nelson into exile.”Ĭhurchill asked for six platypi and Australia agreed to send one, a male playtus that would become the first live platypus in Europe. A telegram from the Australian Ministry of Information to Winston Churchill giving him advice on keeping a platypus (click to enlarge).