April 9, 2013 • 23 mins
It is pretty much impossible to describe duckbill platypuses without using the word "hodgepodge" and for good reason. These mammals also share features with birds, reptiles and even sharks. Learn about the these weird and peculiar (and surprisingly tiny) little creatures that both creationists and evolutionists claim as a demonstration of their beliefs.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know front House stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and the
Stuff you should know, right, Yeah, Zoological Edition. Yeah, I
like these. Yeah. We we try to cover like interesting animals,
(00:23):
not that I mean all interesting animals are fairly interesting,
I think, but we try to like hit up things
like the optopus and the platypus and other pluses. Butterflies
is what you mean. And we did butterflies ones. Yeah,
with the narwhal. We gotta do that at some point too,
not like it's like a dolphin with the tusk. Well,
(00:44):
they'll just be a short one. We just did the narwal. Uh. Yeah,
we were talking today about the platypus. We have not
ever done it before, and despite Jerry's protests to the contrary,
we haven't recorded one. If we have, Chuck and I
have both gone totally insane and have no recollection of it.
So if we did, let us know, well we covered uh,
(01:04):
weird animals in Australia or deadly animals in Australia, venomous
animals in Australia. But we have not covered the platypus specifically.
Did we mention the platypus in that because I don't don't.
I don't recall knowing that the platypus had venom. We
definitely didn't. So that's the big twist of this episode.
I'm ruined it for everybody. I'm sorry. Oh man, there's
so many twists with the platypus. You can't this is
(01:26):
spoiler free. So, um, did you know much of this
stuff beforehand? No? And in fact, I did not know
that they were so small. I didn't either. That took
me by surprise. I thought there may be the size
of like my torso. Yeah, I thought it was like
the size of a of a medium sized dog or something,
or a large beaver. And it kind of looks like
a beaver that stuck its face and something and got
(01:47):
it stuck. Like it looks like a beaver that stuck
its face in a fake duck bill and can't get
it off. It's not a very cute animal. I want
it to be very cute, and it's just not. I
like it. But they are tiny. That's like the size
of a very small cat even Yeah, they run to
about five pounds a little more, is that, right? I
saw five pounds somewhere. Yeah. They what's interesting is they
(02:09):
well they're only found in Eastern Australia up and down
the coast down to the island of Tasmania, right, and
they live in woodlands and rivers. Yeah. And the ones
in the south though are um larger, is there? Yeah,
though they can get up to like six pounds, and
the ones in the north up in like the Queensland coast,
they're like some of those like two and a half
(02:30):
three pounds. They're just teeny little cute guys. They're like
teacup platypus. Yeah. So I've always just seen pictures of
them without a human around a human did I say human?
And um, then when I saw I watched a bunch
of videos today when I saw the people holding them up,
I was like, that's just a little thing. So yeah,
my answer the long window lay saying I didn't know
(02:50):
much about them, Well, you know, I didn't know much
about him either, And it turns out that, um, most
people don't because I've seen a lot of different stuff
like that. Just that weight discrepancy is is just one example.
Like um, like we said, platypuses They spend most of
their lives along river banks and freshwater river banks, we
should say, are there saltwater rivers? Truly, there's like tidal
(03:12):
creeks and stuff like that. These guys are freshwater animals, um,
And they hold their breath when they go eat food
because they're actually bottom feeders. But um, they I saw
a lot of different variations and estimates of how long
they could hold their breath. Thirty seconds I saw all
over the place. One person said, eight minutes. I think
one source said, I don't know five. I think it's
(03:37):
what one source said. So I've seen all over the place.
But the point is there's a lot of random facts
floating around about platypuses, and we're gonna compile them all
together here. That's right. Um. I was instantly surprised by
the fact that they were just on the east coast
of Australia. Didn't know that, right, I knew Australia. I
(03:58):
didn't even know that now first some reason, I don't know.
I just didn't know that. So apparently, after Pangaea split,
it evolved on one of the huge chunks of land
called Gondwana. Then that split formed Australia and South America
and some other places, and they were in South America
and Australia at the time, and then the ones in
(04:18):
South America died off and all he's just like, it's ours, right,
what was that? What happened? Just now? That was Australia. Okay,
that was my best stab um and we the duck
built platypus. As far as it it's called today, that's
obviously a European term for it. And it wasn't until
(04:39):
almost the nineteenth century that the platypus um was first
encountered by Europeans. Before that, Aborigines obviously had run into
them before. They had names for him like Malanong, Bundabura,
uh tambret a, better names than duck build platypus. Yeah,
agreed um. So that the Aborigines knew about it, and
(05:02):
the first white colonists that showed up in Australia, I guess,
heard legends of these things and then started to see
them themselves. And even though these were Europeans telling other Europeans, Hey,
there's this really weird animal down here. There's a bunch
of weird animals, like you're not gonna believe the kangaroo
but this thing has got it, like all of them
beat and people in Europe are like, you're full of it.
(05:24):
And they even sent them specimens, stuffed specimens, and the
the Texa germists and the naturalists and biologists back in
Europe said, I still don't believe it because at the time,
have you ever seen the mermaid mummies? Yeah, the Chinese
were they were in the fabricating animals. Yeah, so everybody
thought it was just a Chinese thing until somebody finally
(05:45):
got their hands on one, uh and dissected it. His
name was Everard Jones, and he proclaimed them real in
eighteen o two. Yeah. It's funny that for a while
they're like, no, no, no, this went through that. I
think they call it the Indian Seas at the time,
they're like went close to China and you know that
they're just nuts over there with this stuff. Yeah, it's
a rogue taxidermy pretty much. What's kind of cool that
(06:06):
they were doing that, though, I wonder if it was
just like a creative thing or what were they doing.
They were selling them to sailors. It's like as some
sort of scam as a yeah, as a mermaid. They're like,
these are real mermaids from what I understand, like the
sea monkeys that you defend, but even less real. So, um,
(06:28):
we finally established a ten o two that platypuses are real,
and we start to just really dig in to figure
out what is going on with these things, and the
more we dig in, the stranger things become. So, for example,
chuck platypus, it's a mammal, and the reason it's a
mammal is because it nurses, it's young, and it has
(06:51):
for yet it doesn't have nipples. No, it secretes its
milk through its abdomen like it's just leaking or something
through poor and the little they're called puggles, they're young,
are and the puggles just suckle on the abdomen and
it's a very odd thing in in nature for that
to happen. It is peculiar. Yeah, very peculiar. Yeah. Um, okay,
(07:14):
so they're mammals, but they're not just mammals. They also
straddle the line like that. Basically, the platypusts exists to
strain the taxonomic system of classification of animals. They have
that duck bill, that pesky duck bill. Yeah, and the
web feet so it's like, all right, so they're birds, right,
(07:34):
I guess, but I thought we just said they were mammals.
Officially they are mammals. That's not going to change, although
you never know. But yeah, they do have the web
feet and the duck bill and then they also have
um certain uh, they have eyes like a reptile. They
lay eggs like a reptile. Amphibians they suckle their young
(07:55):
through their abdomens with milk, but they give birth to eggs,
so that's not supposed to happen either. No, the female
they have two ovaries, one of them functions, one of
them doesn't, and they lay these, you know, one to
three little leathery eggs. They're a little more round than
the oval bird eggs, but there their eggs. And they're
born with teeth that fall out. Then they have these
(08:17):
little horny plates that they mash their food up with. Yeah,
they don't have teeth, they're just weird. They're born with teeth, right,
which actually it's funny because um, both creationists and evolutionists
hold the platypus up as evidence of their beliefs. The
creationists are like, if anything, it's reverse evolutions. They lose
their teeth right, and like you this this thing was
(08:40):
obviously assembled, right, Like what what evolves over hundreds of
millions of years living by water but can only hold
its breath for thirty seconds? Thirty seconds means depending on
who you ask, say the creationists evolutionists say, well, no,
I mean, like what this is probably the earliest example
of a mammal to branch off from the the mammalian line,
(09:02):
so it fills in the gaps between us and our distant,
distant ancestry. It's a great example of evolution. The fact is,
like we're we still don't quite know what the deal
is with this thing, even after mapping it's genome. Yeah,
I bet you there's a political, great political cartoon out
there with a like a Christian pulling on the duck
(09:24):
bill and an evolutionist pulling on the tail the platypus
in the middle, Like, yeah, I just want to live, right,
I guess it just wrote a political cartoon. Don't put
your hang ups on me. Yeah, exactly. All we need
to do is be able to draw, would be said,
so the the the the strange parade of character traits,
(09:47):
character traits that would be what, like whether it was
good to its mother or something. Um of um what
is it called phenotypes? Just biological traits? I guess yeah,
that strange parade of those that has ended yet. No
platypuses are just one of two members of monotreams mammalion monotreams. Okay,
(10:11):
because birds are monotreams because they poop and hatche eggs
out of the same hole called the cloaca. Yeah yeah, um,
but I guess as far as what you're saying mammals
are concerned, there's the spiny ant eater and the platypus
are the only ones who excrete and shoot eggs out
of one hole? Is that the what the kidneys? That
(10:32):
is spiny an eater. It looks like a porcupine with
like kind of a longer nose. Yeah. So they have
one one hole to do their business with and one
hole to lay their eggs with, which is also business.
I guess you're right, and that is very much bird like.
But like I said, the eye structure is more reptilian.
(10:52):
So you said the eggs were leathery, that's pretty reptilian. Yeah,
they're just all over the map. It gets even stranger
than that that. What else we go let's let's look
a little deeper on that duck bill. There's tiny little pores. Right.
For a long time, scientists were like, how we know
that these things when they dive, their bottom feeders, they
feed on shellfish, insects, things that live along the muck
(11:13):
of the bottom of the river. Um, we know that
they close their eyes and they close their nostrils when
they dive, So how are they locating food? And they
figured out that there's tiny little holes on their duck
bill that um have electro receptors in them, just like
a shark. Yeah. Like I think we've talked multiple times
about the nose of a shark. That's why you punch
(11:35):
the shark in the nose, and that's how they feed
is because that will disrupt their their brain if you
give them a good sock in those electrical receptors. And yeah,
and it's very similar this. Um. They they sense movement
through these receptors and they're blind to everything, and this
is how they find the shell fish and all that stuff. Yeah,
these receptors are so sensitive that even just the tiny
(11:57):
movement of an insect's leg, the change in the electrical
current in the water that that produces their electro receptors
pick up. That's how they go eat, and they get
a scoop ful of food and they kind of pocket
it in their cheek for a little while until they
come back up. And then once they do, they use
a bit of the grit on the river bottom to
help with their teeth plates or whatever you call it,
(12:20):
to grind the food downs. Well, their their horny plates
are aided with gravel. Yeah, Ok, then they choose. So
all right, we're starting to get kind of a handle
on this thing, right, So that's got to be the
last weird thing, right, it is not we we've already
mentioned it. But they produce venom. They're one of only
three types of mammals that produce vendom. So think about this.
(12:42):
You've got the kidness, the spiny anneater. It's the only
other monitoring but it doesn't have a duck bill. It
doesn't play because it doesn't do all this other weird stuff.
You've got a certain kind of shrew and selinodones dons.
Uh they are. They produce phantom, right, but they also
(13:05):
don't have duck bills. They also don't have a lecture.
A senters duck built Platypuses are the strangest, hands down
animal around. Hodgepods is the best way to describe them.
They are a hodgepods and they straddle all these different
um different classes. And in the end, I saw an
interview with one lady who had worked on the genome project,
which we'll get to, and she was like, when you're
(13:26):
talking genetics like this, she was like, weird is good.
She's like, this is awesome for us because it shows uh.
I think she called it um informative variation. And so
if you learn about all these weird things that a
platypus has and it's in its genetic code, it can
help fill in because we're mammals too, some of the
stuff that we may not know about and ways that
(13:48):
we are different and similar. It just helps inform you know,
everything basically all there with a little genome of the platypus, right,
And actually not only the differences are good, but also
any similarities between us and them also shows well, this
is a very very ancient trait since they branched off
of mammals a hundred and sixty six million years ago.
(14:09):
Like you have any venomous stabber in your heel, right now.
I try not to use it sometimes, you know, it's
it's easier to just not use than other times. But yes,
I do well, and they actually do. They have venom,
and I think it's that just the males have that
spur on the hind foot. Yeah, and they mostly produce
(14:32):
the venom during spring, which is why they think that
it's probably used to fight with other males. They live solitary. Yeah,
that would make sense because the females are born with
one and it falls off, so they wouldn't need one
for that. Yeah, and then so males will fight with
one another, four females mate and then take off, and
then that's that. Like everybody's kind of lives on their
(14:52):
own over like a set amount of territory as a platypus. Right,
But that that venom doesn't kill other platypus is, but
it could kill a dog and it has before. Yeah,
I'm surprised it doesn't kill another platypus. They might have
some resistance, that's what I think. Yeah, it's got to
because they're smaller than most dogs exactly. Um, it hasn't
ever killed a human, but humans have been known to
(15:15):
get stung by these things, and brother. Does it hurt?
And the reason it hurts is because it is a
mammalian venom and we have no known cure or treatment
for the pain caused by that. So if you are
stung by one of them, you are totally on your
own as far as pain management goes. There's nothing that
(15:35):
can be done. You're just sitting there in agony for
like a week or two until it works itself out. Yeah.
I think it's supposed to suck pretty bad, like swelling
and just lots of pain, right, And like you said,
if there's nothing that can be done, you just ride
around and curse the platypus, I guess. And that's why
you hold them by the tail too. By the way,
if you ever got to grab a platypus, grab him
by the tail because they don't mind. Yeah, and they
(15:57):
can't well yeah, but a possum doesn't have a spur
in the No. But they'll bite you, Oh man, they will.
They're mean. I don't know if that's true actually, but
they hiss. Oh no, they're real means, are they. Yeah,
they'll try to bite you. They'll try to curl up.
If you hold the end of their tail, they'll curl
themselves up trying to get to your wrist, which you
really can't blame them. They're trying to get you to
let them go. But yeah, they'll bite you. They'll they'll
(16:19):
kill you in your whole family if you'd let them.
I remember I was actually one of my first dates
with my high school girlfriend. We know, it may have
been my first date. Actually I walked her back up
to the front porch at the end of the night
and it was that, you know, it's like something on
Norman Rockwell, like, all right, I'm gonna get that first kiss.
We walked up on the porch and it was probably
like four by four or small, and there was a
(16:39):
freaking possum up there that got stuck like trying to
get out, and was just we were sharing this very
small space with this bowesome like hissing at us and
screaming at us, and it made for a very memorable
into the evening. I'm sure. And I don't think I
got the kissing. I know. I thought, you're gonna say
her dad came out to meet you, and he turned
out to be a giant post them that didn't happen. Um,
(17:03):
what else we were talking about the Platypus Genome Project.
Do you sound like you know more about that than me. Well,
they did this, um a hundred scientists got together in
two thousand eight and said, you know what, if we
can figure this thing out, maybe we can help inform
our own, you know, human species. And uh. One thing
they did found out is that we have two chromosomes.
(17:24):
We have a pair if your female give me xx
if you're male gam x y. Birds have ZW for
female zz for male. Platypuses have is the platypuses, Yeah, okay,
they have ten chromosomes, sex chromosomes, and they don't know why.
It's that complicated. So females have ten xs and males
(17:45):
have x y x y x y x y x y.
And the deal is they're similar birds in that their
X one chromosome has eleven genes that are found in
almo million X chromosomes, but their X five gene carries
something called d MRT one, and that's found on the
Z chromosomes of birds. So they sort of share these
(18:05):
sex chromosomes with regular mammals and birds. But they have
ten sets of them. I'm not tin sets, five sets,
and they're superfluous like there's no reason for them to
have this. They haven't figured it out yet, huh. And
they're still working on that, I guess. But that was
definitely like an interesting find. And they're they're eighty percent
mammal or they share eighty percent of their DNA with mammals, right,
So that means if they also share some with birds
(18:28):
and they branched off of mammals a hundred and sixty
six million years ago and went off on their own,
then um, that would mean that we're we possibly are
descended from birds as well. Yeah, it definitely writes that question. Um.
And my other question is this like the venom, Like
it's very similar in composition to reptile venom even though
(18:48):
it's mammalian produced. But they figured out from the Platypus
Genome project that it came up independently. Yeah, they didn't
get it from like a reptilian ancestor. So it almost
like the platypus is almost like this idea that nature
has a finite number of tools and its tool kit
to handle things like reproduction, defense, whatever, and the platypus
(19:12):
represents like all these things just kind of evolving independently
on its own. After it branched off a hundred and
sixty six million years ago. It's pretty neat. Yeah, I
mean it's maybe the platypus there in lines the key
to it all. Who knows, I sincerely hope not. It's
a very strange creature. Well, at the very least, it's
it could help us locate and identify new genes and
(19:33):
then sequences that could turn those genes on and off
in us and uh yes, supposedly ovarian cancer there's some
DNA and varying cancer tumors that's found in platypus sex chromosomes.
So who knows that? That was as far as they
got in what I read. They just discovered that, so
they didn't know what to do with it yet. Yeah.
(19:54):
I think this was a great like load up on
this one people for your next cocktail party, because everyone's like, yea, yeah,
I get it. They got referring, they got a duck bill,
but you can hit him with a bunch of more
cool stuff. Yeah, like, oh yeah, what about the spur
in the heel? Yeah? What about these chromosomes? How do
you like them? Apples? Like the apples? Put that in
your pipe and smoking, right, So that's it. For platypus
(20:16):
is for now until they find some other weird thing
about it, right, yeah, yeah, do you got anything else? Um?
If you want to learn more about platypus is just
type duck bill into the search bar at how stuff
works dot com. It will bring up this amazing article. Um.
And actually no, this article is written by Conger how
stuff Works Ryer, it's on animal Planet. To check out
(20:38):
animal planet dot com and try searching for duck Bill platypus.
Very cool. And and now it's time for listener mal right, great,
all right, Josh, I'm gonna call this from Penelope. Okay,
how simple is that? Hey, guys, big fan. I remember
when how gender reassignment works came up. It was a
little worried because I fall into the genderquer slash transgender
(21:01):
spectrum somewhere. That's all she says. As most people who
try to talk about it in a non offensive way,
UH usually fail. Y'all did a really good job, and
I've had faith ever since then. But I have one
note in the CPR podcast and you think it happeness related, right,
I know because I've read this email, So you're not
thinking that y'all talked about giving blood and how everyone
(21:23):
should give blood. UM, I think in times like these
it's important to keep in mind there's a huge population
of people in the world who cannot give blood because
of the backwards and outdated thinking of the Red Cross.
Her words, I'm of course talking about anyone who has
had sex with a man, who has had sex with
a man ms MS men who have sex with men
(21:44):
are indefinitely banned from giving blood. Women who have sex
with M s M have a one year waiting window
before they can wait M. I didn't know this. Uh.
This thinking obviously came from the UH media created aid
scare that we are just now coming out of. However,
the Red Cross continues this discriminatory policy even though they're
(22:07):
testing abilities that we have are incredibly incredibly accurate. To
quickly sum it up, guys in the future, when we
talk about getting blood in your general daily life on
the podcast wherever, it's a good idea to say something
like those who are allowed should get blood. And so
I didn't know this, and it's always great to get
this kind of message out. So thank you, that is,
she says, love, which is very sweet. Penelope Poppers, thanks
(22:29):
a lot of Penelope. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you for
pointing out it's extraordinarily important. I would say, yeah, and
you know, if that's the case, and I say, get
with it and UH allow people to give blood. I
fits safe. You just directed a message to the Red
Cross calling them out. UH. If you want to call
somebody out through us, we would like to help as
any way possible. You can tweet to us at s
(22:51):
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
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and you can join us our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
(23:11):
dot com
Welcome to you Stuff you should know front House stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and the
Stuff you should know, right, Yeah, Zoological Edition. Yeah, I
like these. Yeah. We we try to cover like interesting animals,
(00:23):
not that I mean all interesting animals are fairly interesting,
I think, but we try to like hit up things
like the optopus and the platypus and other pluses. Butterflies
is what you mean. And we did butterflies ones. Yeah,
with the narwhal. We gotta do that at some point too,
not like it's like a dolphin with the tusk. Well,
(00:44):
they'll just be a short one. We just did the narwal. Uh. Yeah,
we were talking today about the platypus. We have not
ever done it before, and despite Jerry's protests to the contrary,
we haven't recorded one. If we have, Chuck and I
have both gone totally insane and have no recollection of it.
So if we did, let us know, well we covered uh,
(01:04):
weird animals in Australia or deadly animals in Australia, venomous
animals in Australia. But we have not covered the platypus specifically.
Did we mention the platypus in that because I don't don't.
I don't recall knowing that the platypus had venom. We
definitely didn't. So that's the big twist of this episode.
I'm ruined it for everybody. I'm sorry. Oh man, there's
so many twists with the platypus. You can't this is
(01:26):
spoiler free. So, um, did you know much of this
stuff beforehand? No? And in fact, I did not know
that they were so small. I didn't either. That took
me by surprise. I thought there may be the size
of like my torso. Yeah, I thought it was like
the size of a of a medium sized dog or something,
or a large beaver. And it kind of looks like
a beaver that stuck its face and something and got
(01:47):
it stuck. Like it looks like a beaver that stuck
its face in a fake duck bill and can't get
it off. It's not a very cute animal. I want
it to be very cute, and it's just not. I
like it. But they are tiny. That's like the size
of a very small cat even Yeah, they run to
about five pounds a little more, is that, right? I
saw five pounds somewhere. Yeah. They what's interesting is they
(02:09):
well they're only found in Eastern Australia up and down
the coast down to the island of Tasmania, right, and
they live in woodlands and rivers. Yeah. And the ones
in the south though are um larger, is there? Yeah,
though they can get up to like six pounds, and
the ones in the north up in like the Queensland coast,
they're like some of those like two and a half
(02:30):
three pounds. They're just teeny little cute guys. They're like
teacup platypus. Yeah. So I've always just seen pictures of
them without a human around a human did I say human?
And um, then when I saw I watched a bunch
of videos today when I saw the people holding them up,
I was like, that's just a little thing. So yeah,
my answer the long window lay saying I didn't know
(02:50):
much about them, Well, you know, I didn't know much
about him either, And it turns out that, um, most
people don't because I've seen a lot of different stuff
like that. Just that weight discrepancy is is just one example.
Like um, like we said, platypuses They spend most of
their lives along river banks and freshwater river banks, we
should say, are there saltwater rivers? Truly, there's like tidal
(03:12):
creeks and stuff like that. These guys are freshwater animals, um,
And they hold their breath when they go eat food
because they're actually bottom feeders. But um, they I saw
a lot of different variations and estimates of how long
they could hold their breath. Thirty seconds I saw all
over the place. One person said, eight minutes. I think
one source said, I don't know five. I think it's
(03:37):
what one source said. So I've seen all over the place.
But the point is there's a lot of random facts
floating around about platypuses, and we're gonna compile them all
together here. That's right. Um. I was instantly surprised by
the fact that they were just on the east coast
of Australia. Didn't know that, right, I knew Australia. I
(03:58):
didn't even know that now first some reason, I don't know.
I just didn't know that. So apparently, after Pangaea split,
it evolved on one of the huge chunks of land
called Gondwana. Then that split formed Australia and South America
and some other places, and they were in South America
and Australia at the time, and then the ones in
(04:18):
South America died off and all he's just like, it's ours, right,
what was that? What happened? Just now? That was Australia. Okay,
that was my best stab um and we the duck
built platypus. As far as it it's called today, that's
obviously a European term for it. And it wasn't until
(04:39):
almost the nineteenth century that the platypus um was first
encountered by Europeans. Before that, Aborigines obviously had run into
them before. They had names for him like Malanong, Bundabura,
uh tambret a, better names than duck build platypus. Yeah,
agreed um. So that the Aborigines knew about it, and
(05:02):
the first white colonists that showed up in Australia, I guess,
heard legends of these things and then started to see
them themselves. And even though these were Europeans telling other Europeans, Hey,
there's this really weird animal down here. There's a bunch
of weird animals, like you're not gonna believe the kangaroo
but this thing has got it, like all of them
beat and people in Europe are like, you're full of it.
(05:24):
And they even sent them specimens, stuffed specimens, and the
the Texa germists and the naturalists and biologists back in
Europe said, I still don't believe it because at the time,
have you ever seen the mermaid mummies? Yeah, the Chinese
were they were in the fabricating animals. Yeah, so everybody
thought it was just a Chinese thing until somebody finally
(05:45):
got their hands on one, uh and dissected it. His
name was Everard Jones, and he proclaimed them real in
eighteen o two. Yeah. It's funny that for a while
they're like, no, no, no, this went through that. I
think they call it the Indian Seas at the time,
they're like went close to China and you know that
they're just nuts over there with this stuff. Yeah, it's
a rogue taxidermy pretty much. What's kind of cool that
(06:06):
they were doing that, though, I wonder if it was
just like a creative thing or what were they doing.
They were selling them to sailors. It's like as some
sort of scam as a yeah, as a mermaid. They're like,
these are real mermaids from what I understand, like the
sea monkeys that you defend, but even less real. So, um,
(06:28):
we finally established a ten o two that platypuses are real,
and we start to just really dig in to figure
out what is going on with these things, and the
more we dig in, the stranger things become. So, for example,
chuck platypus, it's a mammal, and the reason it's a
mammal is because it nurses, it's young, and it has
(06:51):
for yet it doesn't have nipples. No, it secretes its
milk through its abdomen like it's just leaking or something
through poor and the little they're called puggles, they're young,
are and the puggles just suckle on the abdomen and
it's a very odd thing in in nature for that
to happen. It is peculiar. Yeah, very peculiar. Yeah. Um, okay,
(07:14):
so they're mammals, but they're not just mammals. They also
straddle the line like that. Basically, the platypusts exists to
strain the taxonomic system of classification of animals. They have
that duck bill, that pesky duck bill. Yeah, and the
web feet so it's like, all right, so they're birds, right,
(07:34):
I guess, but I thought we just said they were mammals.
Officially they are mammals. That's not going to change, although
you never know. But yeah, they do have the web
feet and the duck bill and then they also have
um certain uh, they have eyes like a reptile. They
lay eggs like a reptile. Amphibians they suckle their young
(07:55):
through their abdomens with milk, but they give birth to eggs,
so that's not supposed to happen either. No, the female
they have two ovaries, one of them functions, one of
them doesn't, and they lay these, you know, one to
three little leathery eggs. They're a little more round than
the oval bird eggs, but there their eggs. And they're
born with teeth that fall out. Then they have these
(08:17):
little horny plates that they mash their food up with. Yeah,
they don't have teeth, they're just weird. They're born with teeth, right,
which actually it's funny because um, both creationists and evolutionists
hold the platypus up as evidence of their beliefs. The
creationists are like, if anything, it's reverse evolutions. They lose
their teeth right, and like you this this thing was
(08:40):
obviously assembled, right, Like what what evolves over hundreds of
millions of years living by water but can only hold
its breath for thirty seconds? Thirty seconds means depending on
who you ask, say the creationists evolutionists say, well, no,
I mean, like what this is probably the earliest example
of a mammal to branch off from the the mammalian line,
(09:02):
so it fills in the gaps between us and our distant,
distant ancestry. It's a great example of evolution. The fact is,
like we're we still don't quite know what the deal
is with this thing, even after mapping it's genome. Yeah,
I bet you there's a political, great political cartoon out
there with a like a Christian pulling on the duck
(09:24):
bill and an evolutionist pulling on the tail the platypus
in the middle, Like, yeah, I just want to live, right,
I guess it just wrote a political cartoon. Don't put
your hang ups on me. Yeah, exactly. All we need
to do is be able to draw, would be said,
so the the the the strange parade of character traits,
(09:47):
character traits that would be what, like whether it was
good to its mother or something. Um of um what
is it called phenotypes? Just biological traits? I guess yeah,
that strange parade of those that has ended yet. No
platypuses are just one of two members of monotreams mammalion monotreams. Okay,
(10:11):
because birds are monotreams because they poop and hatche eggs
out of the same hole called the cloaca. Yeah yeah, um,
but I guess as far as what you're saying mammals
are concerned, there's the spiny ant eater and the platypus
are the only ones who excrete and shoot eggs out
of one hole? Is that the what the kidneys? That
(10:32):
is spiny an eater. It looks like a porcupine with
like kind of a longer nose. Yeah. So they have
one one hole to do their business with and one
hole to lay their eggs with, which is also business.
I guess you're right, and that is very much bird like.
But like I said, the eye structure is more reptilian.
(10:52):
So you said the eggs were leathery, that's pretty reptilian. Yeah,
they're just all over the map. It gets even stranger
than that that. What else we go let's let's look
a little deeper on that duck bill. There's tiny little pores. Right.
For a long time, scientists were like, how we know
that these things when they dive, their bottom feeders, they
feed on shellfish, insects, things that live along the muck
(11:13):
of the bottom of the river. Um, we know that
they close their eyes and they close their nostrils when
they dive, So how are they locating food? And they
figured out that there's tiny little holes on their duck
bill that um have electro receptors in them, just like
a shark. Yeah. Like I think we've talked multiple times
about the nose of a shark. That's why you punch
(11:35):
the shark in the nose, and that's how they feed
is because that will disrupt their their brain if you
give them a good sock in those electrical receptors. And yeah,
and it's very similar this. Um. They they sense movement
through these receptors and they're blind to everything, and this
is how they find the shell fish and all that stuff. Yeah,
these receptors are so sensitive that even just the tiny
(11:57):
movement of an insect's leg, the change in the electrical
current in the water that that produces their electro receptors
pick up. That's how they go eat, and they get
a scoop ful of food and they kind of pocket
it in their cheek for a little while until they
come back up. And then once they do, they use
a bit of the grit on the river bottom to
help with their teeth plates or whatever you call it,
(12:20):
to grind the food downs. Well, their their horny plates
are aided with gravel. Yeah, Ok, then they choose. So
all right, we're starting to get kind of a handle
on this thing, right, So that's got to be the
last weird thing, right, it is not we we've already
mentioned it. But they produce venom. They're one of only
three types of mammals that produce vendom. So think about this.
(12:42):
You've got the kidness, the spiny anneater. It's the only
other monitoring but it doesn't have a duck bill. It
doesn't play because it doesn't do all this other weird stuff.
You've got a certain kind of shrew and selinodones dons.
Uh they are. They produce phantom, right, but they also
(13:05):
don't have duck bills. They also don't have a lecture.
A senters duck built Platypuses are the strangest, hands down
animal around. Hodgepods is the best way to describe them.
They are a hodgepods and they straddle all these different
um different classes. And in the end, I saw an
interview with one lady who had worked on the genome project,
which we'll get to, and she was like, when you're
(13:26):
talking genetics like this, she was like, weird is good.
She's like, this is awesome for us because it shows uh.
I think she called it um informative variation. And so
if you learn about all these weird things that a
platypus has and it's in its genetic code, it can
help fill in because we're mammals too, some of the
stuff that we may not know about and ways that
(13:48):
we are different and similar. It just helps inform you know,
everything basically all there with a little genome of the platypus, right,
And actually not only the differences are good, but also
any similarities between us and them also shows well, this
is a very very ancient trait since they branched off
of mammals a hundred and sixty six million years ago.
(14:09):
Like you have any venomous stabber in your heel, right now.
I try not to use it sometimes, you know, it's
it's easier to just not use than other times. But yes,
I do well, and they actually do. They have venom,
and I think it's that just the males have that
spur on the hind foot. Yeah, and they mostly produce
(14:32):
the venom during spring, which is why they think that
it's probably used to fight with other males. They live solitary. Yeah,
that would make sense because the females are born with
one and it falls off, so they wouldn't need one
for that. Yeah, and then so males will fight with
one another, four females mate and then take off, and
then that's that. Like everybody's kind of lives on their
(14:52):
own over like a set amount of territory as a platypus. Right,
But that that venom doesn't kill other platypus is, but
it could kill a dog and it has before. Yeah,
I'm surprised it doesn't kill another platypus. They might have
some resistance, that's what I think. Yeah, it's got to
because they're smaller than most dogs exactly. Um, it hasn't
ever killed a human, but humans have been known to
(15:15):
get stung by these things, and brother. Does it hurt?
And the reason it hurts is because it is a
mammalian venom and we have no known cure or treatment
for the pain caused by that. So if you are
stung by one of them, you are totally on your
own as far as pain management goes. There's nothing that
(15:35):
can be done. You're just sitting there in agony for
like a week or two until it works itself out. Yeah.
I think it's supposed to suck pretty bad, like swelling
and just lots of pain, right, And like you said,
if there's nothing that can be done, you just ride
around and curse the platypus, I guess. And that's why
you hold them by the tail too. By the way,
if you ever got to grab a platypus, grab him
by the tail because they don't mind. Yeah, and they
(15:57):
can't well yeah, but a possum doesn't have a spur
in the No. But they'll bite you, Oh man, they will.
They're mean. I don't know if that's true actually, but
they hiss. Oh no, they're real means, are they. Yeah,
they'll try to bite you. They'll try to curl up.
If you hold the end of their tail, they'll curl
themselves up trying to get to your wrist, which you
really can't blame them. They're trying to get you to
let them go. But yeah, they'll bite you. They'll they'll
(16:19):
kill you in your whole family if you'd let them.
I remember I was actually one of my first dates
with my high school girlfriend. We know, it may have
been my first date. Actually I walked her back up
to the front porch at the end of the night
and it was that, you know, it's like something on
Norman Rockwell, like, all right, I'm gonna get that first kiss.
We walked up on the porch and it was probably
like four by four or small, and there was a
(16:39):
freaking possum up there that got stuck like trying to
get out, and was just we were sharing this very
small space with this bowesome like hissing at us and
screaming at us, and it made for a very memorable
into the evening. I'm sure. And I don't think I
got the kissing. I know. I thought, you're gonna say
her dad came out to meet you, and he turned
out to be a giant post them that didn't happen. Um,
(17:03):
what else we were talking about the Platypus Genome Project.
Do you sound like you know more about that than me. Well,
they did this, um a hundred scientists got together in
two thousand eight and said, you know what, if we
can figure this thing out, maybe we can help inform
our own, you know, human species. And uh. One thing
they did found out is that we have two chromosomes.
(17:24):
We have a pair if your female give me xx
if you're male gam x y. Birds have ZW for
female zz for male. Platypuses have is the platypuses, Yeah, okay,
they have ten chromosomes, sex chromosomes, and they don't know why.
It's that complicated. So females have ten xs and males
(17:45):
have x y x y x y x y x y.
And the deal is they're similar birds in that their
X one chromosome has eleven genes that are found in
almo million X chromosomes, but their X five gene carries
something called d MRT one, and that's found on the
Z chromosomes of birds. So they sort of share these
(18:05):
sex chromosomes with regular mammals and birds. But they have
ten sets of them. I'm not tin sets, five sets,
and they're superfluous like there's no reason for them to
have this. They haven't figured it out yet, huh. And
they're still working on that, I guess. But that was
definitely like an interesting find. And they're they're eighty percent
mammal or they share eighty percent of their DNA with mammals, right,
So that means if they also share some with birds
(18:28):
and they branched off of mammals a hundred and sixty
six million years ago and went off on their own,
then um, that would mean that we're we possibly are
descended from birds as well. Yeah, it definitely writes that question. Um.
And my other question is this like the venom, Like
it's very similar in composition to reptile venom even though
(18:48):
it's mammalian produced. But they figured out from the Platypus
Genome project that it came up independently. Yeah, they didn't
get it from like a reptilian ancestor. So it almost
like the platypus is almost like this idea that nature
has a finite number of tools and its tool kit
to handle things like reproduction, defense, whatever, and the platypus
(19:12):
represents like all these things just kind of evolving independently
on its own. After it branched off a hundred and
sixty six million years ago. It's pretty neat. Yeah, I
mean it's maybe the platypus there in lines the key
to it all. Who knows, I sincerely hope not. It's
a very strange creature. Well, at the very least, it's
it could help us locate and identify new genes and
(19:33):
then sequences that could turn those genes on and off
in us and uh yes, supposedly ovarian cancer there's some
DNA and varying cancer tumors that's found in platypus sex chromosomes.
So who knows that? That was as far as they
got in what I read. They just discovered that, so
they didn't know what to do with it yet. Yeah.
(19:54):
I think this was a great like load up on
this one people for your next cocktail party, because everyone's like, yea, yeah,
I get it. They got referring, they got a duck bill,
but you can hit him with a bunch of more
cool stuff. Yeah, like, oh yeah, what about the spur
in the heel? Yeah? What about these chromosomes? How do
you like them? Apples? Like the apples? Put that in
your pipe and smoking, right, So that's it. For platypus
(20:16):
is for now until they find some other weird thing
about it, right, yeah, yeah, do you got anything else? Um?
If you want to learn more about platypus is just
type duck bill into the search bar at how stuff
works dot com. It will bring up this amazing article. Um.
And actually no, this article is written by Conger how
stuff Works Ryer, it's on animal Planet. To check out
(20:38):
animal planet dot com and try searching for duck Bill platypus.
Very cool. And and now it's time for listener mal right, great,
all right, Josh, I'm gonna call this from Penelope. Okay,
how simple is that? Hey, guys, big fan. I remember
when how gender reassignment works came up. It was a
little worried because I fall into the genderquer slash transgender
(21:01):
spectrum somewhere. That's all she says. As most people who
try to talk about it in a non offensive way,
UH usually fail. Y'all did a really good job, and
I've had faith ever since then. But I have one
note in the CPR podcast and you think it happeness related, right,
I know because I've read this email, So you're not
thinking that y'all talked about giving blood and how everyone
(21:23):
should give blood. UM, I think in times like these
it's important to keep in mind there's a huge population
of people in the world who cannot give blood because
of the backwards and outdated thinking of the Red Cross.
Her words, I'm of course talking about anyone who has
had sex with a man, who has had sex with
a man ms MS men who have sex with men
(21:44):
are indefinitely banned from giving blood. Women who have sex
with M s M have a one year waiting window
before they can wait M. I didn't know this. Uh.
This thinking obviously came from the UH media created aid
scare that we are just now coming out of. However,
the Red Cross continues this discriminatory policy even though they're
(22:07):
testing abilities that we have are incredibly incredibly accurate. To
quickly sum it up, guys in the future, when we
talk about getting blood in your general daily life on
the podcast wherever, it's a good idea to say something
like those who are allowed should get blood. And so
I didn't know this, and it's always great to get
this kind of message out. So thank you, that is,
she says, love, which is very sweet. Penelope Poppers, thanks
(22:29):
a lot of Penelope. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you for
pointing out it's extraordinarily important. I would say, yeah, and
you know, if that's the case, and I say, get
with it and UH allow people to give blood. I
fits safe. You just directed a message to the Red
Cross calling them out. UH. If you want to call
somebody out through us, we would like to help as
any way possible. You can tweet to us at s
(22:51):
Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com,
and you can join us our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
(23:11):
dot com
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