Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The platypus is one of the few living mammals to produce venom. The venom is made in venom glands that are connected to hollow spurs on their hind legs; it is primarily made during the mating season. [1] While the venom's effects are described as extremely painful, it is not lethal to humans.
This complex chemical cocktail is a dangerous defense, but it might also have beneficial qualities for humans as well. One hormone found in platypus venom, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), plays a ...
According to one story of the upper Darling River, [112] the major animal groups, the land animals, water animals and birds, all competed for the platypus to join their respective groups, but the platypus ultimately decided to not join any of them, feeling that he did not need to be part of a group to be special, [133]: 83–85 and wished to ...
The echidna spurs are vestigial and have no known function, while the platypus spurs contain venom. [42] Molecular data show that the main component of platypus venom emerged before the divergence of platypus and echidnas, suggesting that the most recent common ancestor of these taxa was also possibly a venomous monotreme. [43]
The spurs are hollow and connected to a venom gland, allowing the platypus to deliver a very painful kick both in mating competitions and as a defense. [22] Similar, but non-venomous spurs are found in echidnas. [23] Similar spurs have been found in the fossils of several early mammals, and is possibly the primitive condition in mammals as a ...
With a beaver’s tail, webbed feet, and a duck’s bill, platypuses are one of the world’s strangest-looking creatures. They are such an unusual mammal that the first scientists to study them ...
A recent Washington Post analysis of government data between 2001 and 2013 found that the main culprits are flying. About 200 Americans are killed per year by animals, according to one study, and ...
The platypus — a venomous, egg-laying, duck-billed, amphibious mammal — is one of the strangest creatures in the animal kingdom. When a platypus pelt was first presented by Joseph Banks to English naturalists in the late 18th century, they were convinced it must be a cleverly created hoax.