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Science Memes @mander.xyz

fossilesque @mander.xyz

7mo ago

Platypuses

131 comments

As a platypus lays eggs and produces milk, it’s the only animal that can make its own custard.
- And echidnas.
  I'm not sure if I'm and echidna custard or platypus custard kind of person.
  
  the new coke v pepsi
  
  Just be sure you don't mention echidna custard in front of Ken Penders.
  
  Echidnas have a four-headed penis. You're welcome.
- Dark.
  Also. Where can I try some?
  
  DM me your card details and I’ll send you a couple of pints from my platypus farm.
- It can make it's own breakfast
  
  yes but what about second breakfast
  
  make its* own breakfast
  
  A full English breakfast ain’t shit once you’ve had the full platypus breakfast!

Also well known for foiling evil plots while wearing a fedora.
- Hey? Where’s Perry?
  
  fedora themed music starts playing
  Do be do be do, bah
  Do be do be do, bah

No stomach? Hadn't heard that one before
- If something is too weird, some of the oddities tend to get overlooked.
- Bizarre beasts episode on this:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Rzx7yeh7c
- I wonder how they process food.
  
  Stomachs aren't necessary... You can jump straight to the large intestine. Even humans can survive like that
  Obviously, they're useful. It's another stage of digestion, which means more energy and nutrients are extracted from your food. It widens your viable food sources, just like chewing does

- An excellent example of spending your points all over the place and somehow ending up with an actually pretty broken build.
  
  Platypus have been around for over 110 million years. Nothing broken about that build!
  
  It's like a Swiss army knife of biological features
- After the platypus, evolution started looking into input validation.

And they sweat milk!
- What the hell?
  
  If I remember correctly, they don't have mammalian glands and instead "sweat" thier milk for thier young.
  
  https://youtube.com/shorts/MYwgoGQBQXg

They also don't have nipples (though do have mammary glands) and mother platypuses basically sweat milk through their skin for the pups to collect off their fur
- what the fuck
  
  The milk pools in grooves on the mother's abdomen, allowing the young to lap it up.
  
  You got an ancestor that did that too. Part of why platypuses are so damn weird is because mammalian ancestors kept facing evolutionary bottlenecks. Platypuses are more like proto mammals than us placentals

The UV light thing wasn't discovered (or at least published) until 2020.
Phineas and Ferb ended in 2015.
- Valid reason to bring it back.
  
  They did bring it back lol
- And guess what color they fluoresce.

It is worth mentioning that when the first stuffed sample of platypus was sent to Britain, the scientists thought it is a joke.
- And some of those same scientists later organized a mass slaughter of thousands of platypuses in order to determine if the stories about them were true. Science, removed!
  
  it all started from laughter to slaughter.

No stomach?! Does food go straight to the colon?
- I went down this rathole.
  They first grind up the bugs they eat in their mouths, then they have a chamber with bacteria which further reduce their food, then their intestines finish the job.
  ETA, since you all are such curious cats:
  https://wildlifefaq.com/platypus-stomach/
  and
  https://platypus.asn.au/platypus-myths/
  
  so whats the chamber between the mouth and intestine called?
  
  Oh, is it like a gizard type of thing sort of?
  
  Thanks for doing so, did you figure out why they glow?
- Yes, platypuses lost their stomach during evolution, so they basically grind food using gravel and their beak before sending it to the intestine, which has taken on some of the functions performed by stomachs in other animals. Source

Like the universe got lazy and hit the "Randomize for me" button instead LMAO
- Will Wright took one look at this thing in an encyclopedia in 2001 and immediately started planning Spore.

Seeing living platypus is high on my bucket list, I'm still not convinced it's not a hoax
- You can just go see one at the zoo; they're usually with the marsupials and chupacabras.
  
  Sure they're not with the pumas?
  
  🤔
  
  I thought you put capybara and just kinda thought you were also implying they were a pseudo SCP.
- You're very unlikely to see one in the wild, they're nocturnal and their burrow entries are under creek banks
  In zoos they live in the nocturnal animal section, probably swimming

Ok who’s got pics of the glowing platypus?
- Hell yeah

And that's the reason you can only find platypuses in Australia.
- You don’t see them though. The national park boards say “look for ripples in the water!”.
  If you see ripples, you’re about to die.
  
  If you see ripples, you’re about to die.
  Yeah, but from which threat? Snake? Spider? Swimming kangaroo?
  
  Well, if you live in Australia, you're about to die... So many deadly things always just round the corner, or under the seat!

Creationists: gOd WoRkS iN mYsTeRiOs WayS
- God was tripping balls that day
- Truly the "Kings Cup" of animals.

It's also adorable! Also, the babies are called platypups!

And Dan Povenmire was the first to discover the florescence. People Perry the platypus was more scientifically accurate than you thought.

I'm curious now how a mammal develops in an external egg. The process seems so weird.

It's a Pokémon. And so far, the only one with at least 4 types: water, poison, flying and electric. How the fuck can you even counter it?
- It is the Avatar.
- Oddly enough, there hasn't been a true platypus Pokémon.

Bin parts build

When you cheat and choose all the perks in the character creator.

They also have spikes in their hind legs that they use to deliver an extremely painful venom that can paralyze small animals.

Venomous? But...if not friend, why friend shaoed?????
- Just the males, iirc.
  They have venomous spurs in their hind feet used in chasing off other males.
  
  And their venom HURTS. They’re not particularly deadly or anything but their venom will land you in the hospital or at least laid up in bed for a while. My stepmother grew up out in the bush in NSW the ‘70s and received one of the few recorded platypus envenomations and she described it as the most painful experience of her life. She said childbirth was a breeze compared to the platypus sting!

I'd like to be, oooohhhh my favorite animal
I want to be, oooohhhh my favorite animal
I'd be a platypus, for you

And somehow we haven't driven it to extinction yet? That's wild!
- Probably because no one has decided to eat it yet.
  
  I'm sure someone has. It probably tastes like popcorn or something
  
  Wombats, koala, kangaroo, and emu eggs are easier to catch/find and were the main meat in places where those are common

And it has natural eyeliner
- I like how cats have thay too. Soo adorable.

Beaver-tailed you say? https://youtube.com/watch?v=P9FRxokO2so
- Ze Frank is still making videos?
  Mind blown, in a good way.

Glows under UV, AND is Fluorescent? Remarkable.
- Yeah that raised an eyebrow. For anyone whose eyebrows remained unraised, fluorescence is glowing under UV.
  
  May they said it "twice" because they actually fluoresce under green light as well?
  /s

No stomach?!
- So it seems: https://www.livescience.com/41661-why-platypus-wont-regain-stomach.html

funny lil guy

YES!! This is the content in here to see.

bro heard about Darwin and went “imma try everything then!”

God's four year old kid got to move the evolution knobs for a day.

Platypussies*

These folks do a great job with nature shorts https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Zxf2MgYCOm0

Taxidermists in the 1800s saw them as trolling, a bit like jackalopes.

And when it hunts underwater it is deaf and blind, sensing electromagnetic signals from its prey with the duck-bill.

"Welcome to Platypus paradise!"

Platypodes

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