Stuff You Should Know - What's the deal with duckbill platypuses?

Episode Date: April 9, 2013

It is pretty much impossible to describe duckbill platypuses without using the word "hodgepodge" and for good reason. These mammals also share features with birds, reptiles and even sharks. Learn about the these weird and peculiar (and surprisingly tiny) little creatures that both creationists and evolutionists claim as a demonstration of their beliefs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is Stuff You Should Know. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Zoological edition. Yeah. I like these. Yeah. We try to cover, like, interesting animals, not that, I mean, all interesting animals, are fairly interesting, I think, but we try to, like, hit up things like the Octopus and the Platypus and other pusses. Ha.

Butterflies is what you mean. And we did butterflies once. Yeah. With the narwhal. We got to do that at some point, too. Nah. It's like a dolphin with a tusk. Well, they know.

They'll just be a short one. We just did the narwhal. Yeah, we're talking today about the Platypus. We have not ever done it before. And despite Jerry's protests, to the contrary, we haven't recorded one. If we have, Chuck and I have both gone totally insane and have no recollection of it. So if we did, let us know. Well, we covered weird animals in Australia, or deadly animals in Australia, venomous animals

in Australia. But we have not covered the Platypus specifically. Did we mention the Platypus in that? Because I don't think so. I don't recall knowing that the Platypus had venom. No, we definitely didn't. That's the big twist of this episode, and I'm just ruining it for everybody. I'm sorry.

Oh, man. There's so many twists with the Platypus. You can't. This is spoiler-free. So did you know much of this stuff beforehand? No. And in fact, I did not know that they were so small. I didn't either.

That took me by surprise. I thought they were maybe the size of like my torso. Yeah. I thought it was like the size of a medium-sized dog or something. Exactly. Or a large beaver. It kind of looks like a beaver that stuck its face in something and got it stuck. Like, it looks like a beaver that stuck its face in a fake duckbill and can't get it off.

It's not a very cute animal. I want it to be very cute, and it's just not. I like it, but they are tiny. It's like the size of a very small cat, even. Yeah. They run to about five pounds. Well, a little more. Is that right?

I saw five pounds somewhere. Yeah. What's interesting is they, well, they're only found in eastern Australia, up and down the coast, down to the island of Tasmania. Yeah. Right. And they live in woodlands and rivers. Yeah.

And the ones in the south, though, are larger. Is that right? Yeah. They can get up to like six pounds, and the ones in the north, up in like the Queensland coast, they're like some of those like two and a half, three pounds. They're just teeny little cute guys. They're like teacup platypus. Yeah.

So, I've always just seen pictures of them without a human around. A human. Did I say human? You did. Um, then when I saw, I watched a bunch of videos today when I saw the people holding them up. I was like, that's just a little thing. Yeah.

So, yeah, my answer, the long-winded way of saying, I didn't know much about them. Well, you know, I didn't know much about them either. And it turns out that, um, most people don't, because I've seen a lot of different stuff. Like the, just that weight discrepancy is, is just one example. Sure. Like, um, like we said, platypuses, they spend most of their lives along riverbanks and freshwater riverbanks, we should say. Yeah.

So, freshwater rivers? Surely. Uh, there's like tidal creeks and stuff like that. These guys are freshwater animals. Yeah. Um, and they hold their breath when they go eat food, because they're actually bottom feeders. But, um, they, I saw a lot of different variations and estimates of how long they could hold

their breath. 30 seconds, I saw all over the place. One person said eight minutes. Yeah. I think one source said, I don't know, five? I think is what one source said. Uh, I've seen all over the place, but the point is there's a lot of random facts floating around about platypuses and we're going to compile them all together here.

That's right. Um, I was instantly surprised by the fact that they were just on the east coast of Australia. Didn't know that. Right. I knew Australia. I didn't even know that. Oh, really?

No, for some reason. I don't know. I just didn't know that. The Pangaea split, it evolved on, uh, one of the huge chunks of land called Gondwana. And that split formed Australia and South America and some other places. And they were in South America and Australia at the time. And then the ones in South America died off and all these were just like, it's ours. What was that?

What happened just now? Oh, that was Australian. Okay. That was my best. Um, and we, the Duckbill platypus as far as it's called today, that's obviously a European term for it. Sure. And it wasn't until almost the 19th century, 1798, that the platypus, um, was first encountered

by Europeans. Before that, Aborigines obviously had run into them before. They had names for them like, uh, Malangong, Bundabura, Uh, Tambreet. Those are all better names. Then Duckbill platypus. Sure. That's right. Um, so that the Aborigines knew about it in the first, uh, white colonists that showed

up in Australia, I guess, heard legends of these things and then started to see them themselves. Yeah. And, uh, even though these were Europeans telling other Europeans, Hey, there's this really weird animal down here. There's a bunch of weird animals like you're not going to believe the kangaroo, but this thing has got it like all of them beat and people in Europe are like, you're full of it.

And I sent them specimens, stuff specimens, and the, the, uh, texadermis and the naturalists and biologists back in Europe said, I still don't believe it because at the time, have you ever seen the mermaid mummies? Yeah. The Chinese were, they were up in the fabricating animals. Yeah. So everybody thought it was just the Chinese. Yeah.

Until somebody finally got their hands on one, uh, and dissected it. Uh, his name was Everard Jones and he proclaimed them real in 1802. Yeah, but it's funny that for a while they were like, no, no, no, this went through the, I think they called it the Indian seas at the time. They're like, I went close to China and you know that they're just nuts over there with this stuff. Yeah. It's a rogue taxidermy.

Yeah. Pretty much. It's kind of cool that they were doing that though. I wonder if it was just like a creative thing or what were they doing? They were selling them to sailors. Oh, as like, as some sort of scam. As a, yeah, as a mermaid. They're like, these are real mermaids.

Okay. From what I understand. Like the sea monkeys that you defend, but even less real. Okay. So, um, we finally established 1802 that platypus is a real and we start to just really dig in to figure out what is going on with these things. Yeah. And the more we dig in, the stranger things become.

So for example, Chuck platypus, it's a mammal and the reason it's a mammal is because it nurses it's young as fur. And it has fur yet it doesn't have nipples. No. It secretes its milk through its abdomen, like it's just leaking or something. Yeah. Through pores and the little, they're called Puggles. They're young are and the Puggles just suckle on the abdomen.

And it's a very odd thing in nature for that to happen. It is peculiar. Yeah. Very peculiar. Yeah. Um, okay. So they're mammals. Yes.

But they're not just mammals. They also straddle the line. So basically the platypus exists to strain the taxonomic system of classification of animals. Yeah. Right? Yeah. They have that duck bill, that pesky duck bill. Yeah.

And the web feed. So it's like, all right. So they're birds. Right? I guess. But I thought we just said they were mammals. Well, I feel like I'm losing my mind. Officially they are mammals.

That's not going to change. Yeah. Although you never know. But yeah, they do have the web feed and the duck bill. And then they also have, um, certain, uh, they have eyes like a reptile, they lay eggs like a reptile. Right. They suckle their young through their abdomens with milk.

Yeah. But they give birth to eggs. So that's not supposed to happen either. No. The female, they have two ovaries, one of them functions, one of them doesn't. And they lay these, you know, one to three little leathery eggs. They're a little more round than the oval bird eggs. But they're, they're eggs and they're born with teeth that fall out.

Then they have these little horny plates that they match their food up with. Yeah. They don't have teeth. They're just weird. Yeah. But they're born with teeth. Right. Which actually it's funny because, um, both creationists and evolutionists hold the platypus

up as evidence of their beliefs. The creationists are like, if anything, it's reverse evolution. Right. They lose their teeth. Right. And like you, this, this thing was obviously assembled. Right. And what, what evolves over hundreds of millions of years living by water, but can only hold

its breath for 30 seconds, 30 seconds or eight minutes, depending on who you ask. Right. Say the creationists. Evolutionists say, well, no, I mean, like what, this is probably the earliest example of a mammal to branch off from the, the mammalian line. Yeah. So it fills in the gaps between us and our distant, distant ancestry. Yeah.

It's a great example of evolution. The fact is like we're, we still don't quite know what the deal is with this thing even after mapping its genome. Yeah. I bet you there's a political, a great political cartoon out there with a, like a, uh, Christian pulling on the duck bill and an evolutionist pulling on the tail and the platypus in the middle. Like, wow.

Yeah. I just want to live. Right. I guess it is a political cartoon. Don't put your hangups on me. Yeah. Exactly. All we need to do is be able to draw and we'd be set.

So the, um, the, the, the, the strange parade of character traits, not character traits. That would be what, like whether it was good to its mother or something. Yeah. Um, of, um, what is it called? Phenotypes. Yeah. Just biological traits, I guess. Yeah.

The, that strange parade of those, uh, that has not ended yet. No, no. These are, um, just one of two members of monotremes, mammalian monotremes. Okay. Cause birds are monotremes cause they poop and hatch eggs out of the same hole. Yeah. Called a cloaca. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, but I guess as far as what you're saying mammals are concerned. Yeah. There's the spiny anteater and the platypus are the only ones who excrete and shoot eggs out of one hole. Is that the, what the echidna is that a spiny anteater? Yeah. Okay.

It looks like a porcupine with like kind of a longer nose. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah.

And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course. Yes. They can do that. Okay. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off.

The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move

or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. This episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, so they have one hole to do their business with and one hole to lay their eggs with.

Which is also business, I guess you're right. And that is very much birdlike, but like I said, the eye structure is more reptilian. So you said the eggs were leathery? That's pretty reptilian. Yeah, they're just all over the map. It gets even stranger than that, Charles. Okay, what else we got? Let's look a little deeper on that duck bill.

There's tiny little pores, right? For a long time, scientists were like, we know that these things, when they dive, they're bottom feeders. They feed on shellfish, insects, things that live along the muck of the bottom of the river. We know that they close their eyes and they close their nostrils when they dive. So how are they locating food? And they figured out that there's tiny little holes on their duck bill that have electro-receptors in them, just like a shark.

Yeah, like I think we've talked multiple times about the nose of a shark, that's why you punch the shark in the nose and that's how they feed is because that'll disrupt their brain if you give them a good sock in those electrical receptors. And yeah, and it's very similar. They sense movement through these receptors and they're blind to everything and this is how they find the shellfish and all that stuff. Yeah, these receptors are so sensitive that even just the tiny movement of an insect's leg, the change in the electrical current in the water that that produces their electro-receptors

pick up, that's how they go eat and they get a scoop full of food and they kind of pocket it in their cheek for a little while until they come back up. And then once they do, they use a bit of the grit on the river bottom to help with their teeth plates or whatever you call them, to grind the food down. They call them horny plates. Well, their horny plates are aided with gravel. Wow. Yeah, and then they chew.

So, all right, we're starting to get kind of a handle on this thing, right? So that's got to be the last weird thing, right? It is not. We've already mentioned it, but they produce venom. They're one of only three types of mammals that produce venom. So think about this, you've got the echidnis, the spiny anion. It's the only other monitoring, but it doesn't have a duck bill. It doesn't lay eggs.

It doesn't do all this other weird stuff. You've got a certain kind of shrew and selenodones, dons. They produce venom, right? But they also don't have duck bills. They also don't have electro-receptors. Little platypuses are the strangest, hands-down animal around. Hodgepodge is the best way to describe them. They are hodgepodge, and they straddle all these different classes.

And in the end, I saw an interview with one lady who had worked on the genome project, which we'll get to. Yeah. And she was like, when you're talking genetics like this, she was like, weird is good. She was like, this is awesome for us. Yeah. Because it shows, I think she called it informative variation. And so if you learn about all these weird things that a platypus has in its genetic

code, it can help fill in, because we're mammals, too, some of the stuff that we may not know about in ways that we are different and similar. It just helps inform everything, basically. All there with the little genome of the platypus. Right. And actually, not only the differences are good, but also any similarities between us and them. Sure.

Well, this is a very, very ancient trait since they branched off of mammals 166 million years ago. Right. Like you have a thorny venomous stabber in your heel. Right. Yeah. Right now? I try not to use it.

Sometimes, you know, it's easier to just not use than other times, but yes, I do. Well, and they actually do, they have venom. And I think it's, isn't it just the males have that spur on the hind foot? Yeah, and they mostly produce the venom during spring, which is why they think that it's probably used to fight with other males. They live solitary lives. That would make sense, because the females are born with one and it falls off. Right.

So they wouldn't need one for that. Yeah. And then so males will fight with one another for females, mate, and then take off. And then that's that. Like everybody's kind of lives on their own over like a set amount of territory as a platypus. Right? Okay. So, venom doesn't kill other platypuses, but it could kill a dog and it has before.

Yeah. I'm surprised it doesn't kill another platypus. They may have some resistance. Right. That's what I think. Yeah. It's got to be because they're smaller than most dogs. Exactly.

It hasn't ever killed a human, but humans have been known to get stung by these things. And brother, does it hurt? And the reason it hurts is because it is a mammalian venom and we have no known cure or treatment for the pain caused by that. So if you are stung by one of them, you are totally on your own as far as pain management goes. There's nothing that can be done. You're just sitting there in agony for like a week or two until it works itself out.

Yeah. I think it's supposed to suck pretty bad like swelling and just lots of pain. Right. And like you said, if there's nothing that can be done, you just ride around and curse the platypus, I guess. Yeah. And that's why you hold them by the tail too, by the way. If you ever go to grab a platypus.

Yeah. Grab them by the tail. Yeah. Because they don't mind it. Same with the possums. Yeah. And they can't well. Yeah.

But a possum doesn't have a spur in the tail. No. But they'll bite you. Oh man, they will. They're mean. I don't know if that's true actually. But they hiss. Oh no, they're real mean.

Oh, are they? Yeah. They'll try to bite you. They'll try to curl up. If you hold the end of their tail, they'll curl themselves up trying to get to your wrist. Which you really can't blame them. They're trying to get you to let them go. Sure.

But yeah, they'll bite you. They'll kill you and your whole family if you let them. I remember I was actually one of my first dates with my high school girlfriend. We- Kits of possums? No, it may have been my first date actually. I walked her back up to the front porch at the end of the night and it was that, you know, it was like something on Norman Rockwell like, all right, I'm going to get that first

kiss. We walked up on the porch and it was probably like four by four, it was small and there was a freaking possum up there that got stuck like trying to get out and was just, we were sharing this very small space with this possum. It was like hissing at us and screaming at us. And it made for a very memorable end of the evening. I'm sure. And I don't think I got the kiss on any of them.

I thought you were going to say her dad came out to meet you and he turned out to be a giant possum. No, that didn't happen. What else? We were talking about the platypus genome project. You sound like you know more about that than me. Well, they did this, a hundred scientists got together in 2008 and said, you know what? If we can figure this thing out, maybe we can help inform our own human species.

And one thing they did found out is that we have two chromosomes. We have a pair. If you're female, you meet XX, if you're male, you meet XY. Birds have ZW for females, easy for male. Platypuses have, is it platypuses? Yeah. Okay. They have 10 chromosomes, sex chromosomes.

And they don't know why it's that complicated. So females have 10 Xs and males have XY, XY, XY, XY, XY and the deal is they're similar birds in that their X1 chromosome has 11 genes that are found in all the million X chromosomes. But their X5 gene carries something called DMRT1 and that's found on the Z chromosomes of birds. So they sort of share the sex chromosomes with regular mammals and birds, but they have 10 sets of them. I'm not 10 sets.

And they're superfluous. Like there's no reason for them to have this. They haven't figured it out yet. And they're still working on that, I guess. But that was definitely like an interesting find. And they're 80% mammal or they share 80% of their DNA with mammals, right? So that means if they also share some with birds and they branched off with mammals 166 million years ago and went off on their own, then that would mean that we possibly are

descended from birds as well. Yeah. It definitely raised that question. Um, my other question is this, like the, the venom, like it's very similar in composition to reptile venom, even though it's mammalian produced, right? But they figured out from the platypus genome project that it came up independently. Oh, really? Yeah.

They didn't get it from like a reptilian ancestor. So it almost like the platypus is almost like this idea that nature has a finite number of tools in its tool kit to handle things like reproduction, defense, right? Whatever. And the platypus represents like all these things just kind of evolving independently on its own after it branched off 166 million years ago. It's pretty neat. Yeah.

I mean, it's maybe the platypus therein lies the key to it all. Who knows? I sincerely hope not. It's a very strange creature. Well, at the very least it's, it could help us locate and identify new genes and then sequences that could turn those genes on and off and us and, uh, Yeah. A variant cancer, there's some DNA and a variant cancer tumors that's found in platypus

sex chromosomes. Wow. Yeah. Cool. So who knows? That, that was as far as they got. Yeah. And what I read, they just discovered that.

So they didn't know what to do with it yet. Yeah. I think this was a great like load up on this one people for your next cocktail party because everyone's like, yeah, yeah. Get it. They got, they're free and they got a duck bill that you can hit them with a bunch of more cool stuff. Yeah.

Like, oh yeah. What about the spur in the heel? Yeah. What about these chromosomes? How do you like them apples? How do you like them apples? Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Right.

So that's it for platypuses for now until they find some other weird thing about it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You got anything else? No. Um, if you want to learn more about platypuses, just type duck bill into the search bar at howstuffworks.com.

It will bring up this amazing article. Um, and actually, no, this article is, uh, written by Conger, a howstuffworks writer. It's on Animal Planet. Oh yeah. So check out animalplanet.com and try searching for duck bill platypus. Very cool. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs, America's public enemy number one is drug abuse.

This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course. Yes.

They can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty.

The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing

on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now it's time for Listener Mail, right? Great. All right, Josh. I'm going to call this from Penelope. How simple is that?

Hey, guys. Big fan. I remember when How Ginger Reassignment Works came up. I was a little worried because I fall into the gender-queer-slash-transgender spectrum somewhere. That's all she says. As most people who try to talk about it in a non-offensive way usually fail, y'all did a really good job and have had faith ever since then.

But I have one note. In the CPR podcast, you think it happened this way, right? I know because I've read this email. Okay. So you're not thinking that? No. Y'all talked about giving blood and how everyone should give blood. I think in times like these, it's important to keep in mind that there's a huge population

of people in the world who cannot give blood because of the backwards and outdated thinking of the Red Cross, per words. I'm, of course, talking about anyone who has had sex with a man who has had sex with a man. MSMs, men who have sex with men, are indefinitely banned from giving blood. Women who have sex with an MSM have a one-year waiting window before they can give. I didn't know this. This thinking obviously came from the media created aid scare that we are just now coming

out of. However, the Red Cross continues this discriminatory policy, even though their testing abilities that we have are incredibly, incredibly accurate. To quickly sum it up, guys, in the future, when you talk about getting blood in your general daily life on the podcast, wherever, it's a good idea to say something like, those who are allowed should give blood. So I didn't know this, and it's always great to get this kind of message out. So thank you, that is, she says love, which is very sweet, Penelope Poppers.

Thanks a lot, Penelope. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. It's extraordinarily important, I would say. Yeah, and, you know, if that's the case, then I say get with it and allow people to give blood if it's safe. You just directed a message to the Red Cross, calling them out. If you want to call somebody out through us, we would like to help as any way possible.

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Are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jack move or being robbed, that you call civil asset for. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey witches, I'm Ilaria Baldwin. And I'm Michelle Campbell Mason.

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