Nothing About the Platypus Is Normal... Here's Why

Nothing about the platypus is normal: it lays eggs but makes milk, has venom, no stomach, ten sex chromosomes and a bill that senses electricity. This documentary goes through the platypus one shock at a time, in the order science discovered them, from the 1799 specimen that was suspected of being a fake to the fur that glows under ultraviolet light. And it answers the real question: how did one small Australian animal end up this strange? 0:00 How a Platypus Hunts 1:49 The First Specimen 3:30 Does It Lay Eggs? 6:38 The Venom Spur 8:23 The Electric Bill 10:33 Ten Sex Chromosomes 11:59 Why It Is So Strange 14:13 A Platypus for Churchill 15:35 Trouble in the Rivers Sources: Warren et al., Genome analysis of the platypus reveals unique signatures of evolution, Nature, 2008 Grützner et al., In the platypus a meiotic chain of ten sex chromosomes shares genes with the bird Z and mammal X chromosomes, Nature, 2004 Scheich et al., Electroreception and electrolocation in platypus, Nature, 1986 Anich et al., Biofluorescence in the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), Mammalia, 2020 Bino, Kingsford and Wintle, A stitch in time - synergistic impacts to platypus metapopulation extinction risk, Biological Conservation, 2020 #platypus #weirdanimals #wildlife