Originally published at: Australian woman suffers a painful spurring while "rescuing" a platypus that didn't need rescuing | Boing Boing
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Some people seem to think that wild animals had no ability to survive on their own until humans showed up.
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To be fair, we have made such a mess of the natural world that a surprising number of them no longer do have that ability on their own.
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Platypus venom is such a perplexing cocktail of peptides (and other stuff) that it’s surprising that some dubious start-up hasn’t been established to isolate the components (perhaps particularly the natriuretic/vaso-diliating bits) as a potential for new pharmaceuticals (“AllNatural! Because… Platypus!”) -sigh-. They don’t even know yet how it causes such pain; there’s a ph.d thesis right there.
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… apparently a ditch by the side of the road is a platypus’s natural habitat
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“next time I try to rescue a platypus” tells me she learned very little from the experience.
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Apparently the spring breeding season venom is worse than the rest of the year.
And you don’t want to go to close to their reproductive organs either.
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First time I heard that a platypus was venomous my response was “yeah, right”. Then did some googling and was all WTF? Australia really is trying to kill you.
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exactly. it’s a really dubious response.
Platypus “venom is resistant to most pain relief” including opioids “and can result in excruciating pain for those on the receiving end,” which can persist for years after application. That odd mixture of platypus chemicals is no joke. Australia, you’re so weird!
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Platypi are basically just an amalgam of a bunch of random vertebrate parts God had lying around. It’s a cold-blooded, reptile-walking, electroreception-equipped venomous beaverduck that sweats milk.
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Australia is basically the Gods test lab, where they throw shit at the wall and then go “Hmm, maybe we should dial that back a bit!”
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Platypuses aren’t cold-blooded. Are you thinking of egg-laying?
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With toxic claws
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They have a body temperature of about 90 degrees Fahrenheit so they are cold-blooded relative to most mammals.
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