Platypuses sweat milk, use electricity to see underwater, and are composed 100% of wtf

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/24/platypuses-sweat-milk-use-ele.html

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I love weird sciencey articles like this! Nice to see stuff that is not depressing, stupid and end of the world-y. Thank you BB.

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Also, instead of blood they have chlorphyll and can turn their heads 270 degrees like an owl.

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Still my favorite platypus meme:

image

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They like tummy scritches. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Not so strange then after all

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Our rivers are shallow, silty and slow flowing. They periodically dry up or form chains of ponds, so its better to be an air breather, able to cross short distances of land, than being dependent on oxygen in the water. In that sense, the platypus occupies a similar ecological niche to the crocodile, but in different areas with little overlap.

Other than the crocs, there are few predators in the water here, so a strange animal like this has a better chance of propagating.

I think a Footfall scenario where platypus’s evolve into something intelligent would be really interesting.

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More Platypuses, please!

Perhaps unicorn-chasers and platypuses ballroom-dancing over rainbows together.

I love platypuses. Platypuses, platypuses, plat-y-puses!!!

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I think mammary glands are just modified sweat glands / hair follicles. I used to work with nude lab mice and we couldn’t breed nude females because their hairlessness meant they didn’t produce milk. So we had to breed nude males to hairy females.

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I hear they can see gravity waves communicate via ansible.

True facts.

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Blind drunk.

The are pretty adorable, especially with their weird, almost bird-like, clucking/purring noises.

Sure, until you find out about the weird. apocalypse-causing ability of the platypus…

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Dude, stop trying to ruin platypuses for us. Let us have a nice thing, k?

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And BIGGER ONES.

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Platypodes.

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Platypoodles.

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Platypuggles.

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What an adorable little abomination!

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