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Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek
I don't know that much about them. They're very strange though. They live more on the eastern side of Australia and I have more of an understanding of mammals in North America or Africa. Of course domesticated animals too, but the Platypus is an egg laying mammal, so I'm not too familiar with them.  
I do know that there are five species of egg laying mammals, as far as I know of. Genetically I'm not sure how the platypus evolved, but you would think they may have some kind of genetic connection to Echidnas. They also lay eggs, and live in the same region. They're mostly nocturnal too, so I think they're may be some genetic similarities here. Who knows?
They could have evolved from dinosaurs from any of the most recent time periods, or some type of mammal from the Tertiary period, but we really would have to look at the regions and/or time period to make a wild guess.
ETA: Thanks for posting this. :-) |
What my husband said what he finds interesting about these animals is that they are the "transition" from reptiles to birds to mammals--because the platypi share genetic code for all 3 types of kingdoms. The platypus has venom in its legs like poisonous snakes and other reptiles. The females lay eggs, both genders have bills like ducks and they have fur and a undefined mammary glands.
The genetic map is the full DNA map of these animals with several duplications of a number of genes. I did not read how many chromosomes it had and it sounds like there is a ploidy issue--like one too many sex chromosomes...