Weird stuff

I was looking on the internet for something and stumbled on some weird facts about platypus that I didn't know. I thought it would be fun to blog about it.

(Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Obvious weirdness

There are a couple of facts most people know about platypus, so I'll only mention them in passing:

They are one of the few mammals to lay eggs.
They have a beak, or more formally, a bill.
When the first samples were brought to the UK, scientists thought they were fake.

Let's get on to the more interesting facts.

Venom

Only a handful of mammals are venomous, including the platypus. The male has a venom spur on its hind legs as you can see in the image below.

(The original uploader was Elonnon at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Biologically, it's a modified sweat gland that produces venom. It's thought the males use these spurs to fight other males for access to females.

The venom is quite powerful and can affect humans quite strongly. Here's an alarming description from Wikipedia:

Although powerful enough to paralyze smaller animals, the venom is not lethal to humans. Still, it produces excruciating pain that may be intense enough to incapacitate a victim. Swelling rapidly develops around the entry wound and gradually spreads outward. Information obtained from case studies shows that the pain develops into a long-lasting hyperalgesia that can persist for months but usually lasts from a few days to a few weeks. A clinical report from 1992 showed that the severe pain was persistent and did not respond to morphine.

Electrosense

The platypus' bill is filled with sensory receptors that can detect incredibly small movements in the water like those made by the freshwater shrimp it feeds on. It also has a large number of electroreceptors that can sense biological electrical signals, for example, the muscle contractions of its prey. It can combine these two signals as a location mechanism. (See "The platypus bill, push rods and electroreception.")

No functional stomach

A stomach is an organ that secretes digestive enzymes and acids to break down food. The platypus doesn't have one. Instead, it's food goes directly to its intestines. It chews its food so thoroughly, there's not much need for digestive acids and enzymes, and it eats so frequently, there's not much need for storage. (See "Some platypus myths.")

What does platypus taste like

Platypus are protected in Australia and you can't hunt and eat them. The aboriginal people didn't eat them because of their smell. In the 1920s, some miners did eat one and reported the taste was “a somewhat oily dish, with a taste between those of red herring and wild duck”. There's surprisingly little else published on their taste. You can read more here.

What does dead platypus milk taste like?

Platypus females produce milk through their skin (they don't have nipples). This means of milk production is more susceptible to bugs, so it's probably no surprise platypus milk contains antibiotics (see this reference.)

But what does platypus milk taste like? More specifically, what does milk from a dead platypus taste like? It turns out, we actually know; it doesn't actually taste or smell of anything.

Plurals

This article goes into the subject on some depth. To cut to the chase, platypi is definitely wrong, but either platypus or platypuses are correct.

Baby platypus

Baby platypus are mostly called puggles, although there's some push back to that name.

Theme tune

Apparently, there was a Disney TV series called "Phineas and Ferb" that featured a platypus. Here's his theme song.

There aren't many other songs about platypus. The only other one I could find was "Platypus (I hate you)" by Green Day which doesn't seem to have a lot to do with Australian mammals.