Venomous? The platypus genetic code is unraveled

The platypus (scientific name, Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is certainly a unique animal, having traits common to mammals and reptiles, as well as the bill of a bird. But venomous?

Researchers from Australia, the US and UK have unraveled its genome - here's a short BBC piece. Check out a related video via the BBC News site, too.

The platypus is so strange that it was considered a hoax when sent from Australia to European researchers in the 19th Century [that's the 1800s, Junior].

"It has a very weird appearance because it's a mishmash of the bill of a duck, the eyes of a mole, the eggs of a lizard and the tail of a beaver," Dr Ponting told BBC News. (Dr Chris Ponting is of the MRC Functional Genetics Unit at the University of Oxford, in the UK)

"It was one of several (mammals) we could have chosen, but it was certainly the one that everyone seemed to wish to sequence because of its unusual features."

"One big surprise was the patchwork nature of the genome with avian, reptilian and mammalian features," he added.

The platypus and the small spiny mammal known as the echidna are the only existing species of monotremes in the world. All other mammals give birth to live young.

The research was written up for the journal Nature. While there is plenty fascinating about this animal, the part that caught my amazement is how venomous that the males are:

Male platypuses have spurs on their hind legs that are loaded with a venom so potent it can kill a dog.

The makeup of the platypus has no shortage of admirers among researchers:

“There is nothing quite as enigmatic as a platypus,” says Richard Gibbs, who directs the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. “You have got these reptilian repeat patterns and these more recently evolved milk genes and independent evolution of the venom. It all points to how idiosyncratic evolution is.”

- Jonny O