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82 Comments
- zplot, on 05/09/2008, -3/+18The platypus is awesome. It doesn't conform to giving birth like other mammals, but does its own thing and lays egg. Rock on.
- angusm, on 05/09/2008, -11/+24I've always thought of the platypus as God's Easter Egg, a quirky joke hidden in the animal kingdom by a bored programmer who'd worked too many late nights.
- 4rp4n3t, on 05/09/2008, -7/+15Funny. I always thought of god [sic] as Man's Easter egg. A quirky joke hidden in the minds of the gullible and needy. Ho hum.
- da_bradler, on 05/09/2008, -2/+9Two platypus articles on the front page within 12 hours of each-other? What the hell is going on... Since Obama finished off Hillary have all the Obama bots turned into Platypus bots? http://digg.com/general_sciences/Platypus_genetic_ ...
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -2/+7"Since the platypus lacks nipples, the pups suckle milk from the mother's abdominal skin."
Picturing anything suckling Hillary has me on the verge of a coma. - ormmarine, on 05/09/2008, -2/+7It's equally annoying when non-religious people spaz over the slightest religious viewpoint on any subject, claiming religion has nothing to do with said subject.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who believes in a god or the God. This god encompasses more than early Sunday mornings (or whenever the community of worshipers gathers), and it's natural, when you encounter something beautiful/odd/interesting in the world to think of the creator who made it and wonder why it was made that way. - linga99, on 05/09/2008, -1/+6I am fortunate in that there are a couple of places near where I live where I regularly see these things while I'm fishing (yes, I am an aussie). If you are quiet you can watch them for ages. You end up forgetting fishing for a while and just watching them. They really aren't that big, the article says 50cm but I have never seen one that big. One thing the article doesn't tell you is that the males have a poisonous 'spike' too, like a fish or something.
- dave122, on 05/09/2008, -4/+8I for one welcome our new snake-chicken-gorilla overlords.
- Lokomis, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4i think platypus is a pretty cool guy. eh lays eggs and doesn't afraid of anything.
- aladrin, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4Half mammal, half reptile, half bird.. MammalBirdReptile. It exists! I'm super serial!
- Sverre, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3One thing that bothers me with the article is the use of the word reptile.
Okay, I know I'm being pedantic, but technically speaking, the common ancestor of platypi and the other mammals was not a reptile. They are called synapsids, and used to be called "mammal-like reptiles", which may be where the confusion comes from. This name is not used anymore, so as to not confuse them with the real reptiles (sauropsids).
The point is that these features are not uniquely reptilian - they were present in a common ancestor of reptiles and the synapsids. The fact that the rest of the mammals lost these features does not make the features reptilian. (The illustration linked from the article is ridiculus; eggs are certainly not a unique bird feature, as most creatures lay eggs.) - 4rp4n3t, on 05/09/2008, -4/+7Swhooooosh
- MacEnvy, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Those would all be mammals.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2I did.
- rabidbob, on 05/09/2008, -2/+4The platypus is an odd combination of very cool and bizarrely stupid. What I really want to know though is are they kosher? No one has been able to give me a firm answer to this yet.
- ogore, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2from wikipedia
'Male echidnas have a four-headed penis, but only two of the heads are used during mating. The other two heads "shut down" and do not grow in size. The heads used are swapped each time the mammal has sex.' - waynehoggett, on 05/09/2008, -1/+3Platypi aren't new... Australia has the best animals in the world. Sure we don't have tigers, elephants or gorillas, but we have kangaroos, koalas and these little beauties!
- Abram730, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Nothing like some rushed horizontal gene transfer to save a host.
Saved by noodlely goodness. - ParanoydAndroid, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2"And unlike other mammals, the male platypus can deliver venom from a tiny spur on each hind limb. "
Ignoring the fact that they began a sentence with "and," they did actually describe that very phenomenon. - steveoco, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2The male Platypus has ankle spurs which produce a cocktail of venom, composed largely of defensin-like proteins (DLPs), which is unique to the Platypus. Although powerful enough to kill smaller animals, the venom is not lethal to humans, but is so excruciating that the victim may be incapacitated. Oedema rapidly develops around the wound and gradually spreads throughout the affected limb. Information obtained from case histories and anecdotal evidence indicates that the pain develops into a long-lasting hyperalgesia that persists for days or even months
- Wade, on 05/09/2008, -1/+3Insinuating the existence of a god is as much an insult to someone's disbelief in the supernatural as refuting the existence of a god. Fire meet fire.
- mrdiggdude, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2I swear ive already seen 2 articles about platypus's on the front page today
- inactive, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1 I agree. I'd much rather see a program about aussie critters than yet another one about lions killing whatever.
- radix2, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Nipples are just modified sweat glands anyway. But why did politics have to enter this thread? Oh. I'm on Digg....
- Fordi, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Well, they don't have cloven hooves, and technically, all small mammals are kosher. Reptiles aren't even spoken to in Kashrut, so I have to assume that they're kosher as well. All in all, I think you can eat a duck billed platypus without disobeying any mitzvot.
By the by: I'm an ex-catholic atheist. - radix2, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1dammit. *puts the platypus down*
- ispeakasian, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1No. the platypus is the only thing that WON'T blend.
- steveoco, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1They have a barb behind there back flippers which can inject a venom. I have no idea why people are digging down the comments about the poisonous barb... it is totally fact.
- aladrin, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2Ah good, they didn't forget about the venom from the hind claws. Somehow, that is even weirder than the rest of it.
- BabyWookie, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1I, for one, welcome our new half-reptilian overlords.
- Sverre, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2@masterm1nd: According to this random source: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.ht ... , there are about 1.1 billion non-believers, making up 16% of the worlds population.
- huertanix, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1lolwut?
- fuuinverse, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1The only thing that bothers me is when people insist on saying that platypuses have something-like-a-something-else. They don't, they look look superficially similar to other animal parts, that's it.
Here's something about it: http://thinkingzygote.blogspot.com/2008/05/platypu ... - capellathestar, on 05/21/2008, -0/+1Platypi is awesome, because it's the funnest word to try and fit in a casual conversation.
- Opiate, on 05/09/2008, -3/+4How's life treating you? Why are athiests so uptight and intolerant to jokes about god even, you do realise that man could create such a creature and be it's "god".
- sanosuke001, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1everyone who took 6th grade science?
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Yeah. If they didn't ***** bricks I would be homeless.
- j2002, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2The Platypus is a monotreme - a proto mammel, not as the article states, a mammel - but its not the only one - echidnas are also monotremes like knuckles from sonic!
- mxmj, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2I care.
- ripple123, on 05/09/2008, -5/+6Its so annoying when religious people try and insert their philosophies into completely unrelated conversations. Its like a salesman who never clocks off.
- RubineBoy, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2Speaking of an identity crisis ...
- bovilexia, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2I thought it was ManBearPig
- Opiate, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2You're getting dugg down but you happen to be more reasonable then the lot, how's that for irony?
- waynehoggett, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Pwn
- ogore, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Nah there just using them so they can make Hillary/reptile jokes
- bongowaxx, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1Thank you thank you, I'm here all day.
- steveoco, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1Not to mention they are poisonous...
- thedogfatherx, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1Platypus's are a hell of a drug.
- inactive, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1Just like us Human beings...genetically modified by Aliens.
- 4rp4n3t, on 05/09/2008, -2/+2Very, very well, thanks!
What makes you so sure I am atheist? What gives you the impression I was uptight about the OP's comment?
BTW - is your username anything to do with Marx's "Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right"? -
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