Since the time Europeans found the platypus in the last part of the 1700s, the strange, duck-billed, semi-aquatic animal has astounded scientists for many reasons.
Earth’s strangest warm-blooded creature lays eggs, sweats milk and has 10 sex chromosomes. There are not many creatures as unusual as the eccentric duck-charged platypus which lays eggs as opposed to giving birth to babies, sweats milk, has venomous spikes, 10 sex chromosomes, and a fur that is luminous… A recently delivered first complete guide of its genome has added to its oddness and given a few answers regarding how a couple of its interesting highlights arose.
The study was published in the scientific journal Nature.
Actual guide of the platypus genome
Although this beaver-like platypus local to Australia had its genome sequenced previously, it was distinctly for a female. Presently, utilizing a male platypus, a worldwide group of analysts drove by the University of Copenhagen has made an actual guide of the platypus genome that is more precise than any other time in recent memory.
The duck-billed platypus has a place with an exceptionally specific gathering of well-evolved creatures known as monotremes and its qualities are moderately crude and unaltered, uncovering a combination of a few vertebrate creature classes: fowls, reptiles, and warm-blooded animals. “It has safeguarded a significant number of its progenitors’ unique highlights — which most likely add to its achievement in adjusting to the climate they live in,” says transformative researcher Guojie Zhang, at the University of Copenhagen.
“The total genome has given us the responses to how a couple of the platypus’ peculiar highlights arose. Simultaneously, translating the genome for platypus is significant for improving our comprehension of how different warm-blooded creatures advanced—including us people,” Zhang stated, expressing that the genome holds the key concerning why people developed to become creatures that conceive an offspring as opposed to laying eggs.
The only creature with 10 sex chromosomes
Additionally, rather than teeth, the platypus has two horn plates they use to squash their food. Approximately 120 million years prior four of the eight qualities answerable for tooth improvement vanished, winding up with platypus losing their teeth.
Another peculiarity included how platypus is the solitary creature with 10 sex chromosomes. The monotremes have five Y and five X chromosomes.
Presently, because of the close total chromosomal level genomes, specialists imagine that these 10 sex chromosomes in the predecessors of the monotremes were coordinated in a ring structure which was later split away into numerous little bits of X and Y chromosomes.
Besides, genome planning has uncovered that most monotreme sex chromosomes share more for all intents and purpose with chickens than with people, likewise indicating a transformative connection among warm-blooded creatures and winged creatures. Odd little creatures!
Decoding the genome for platypus is important for improving our understanding of how other mammals evolved, including us humans,” explained Zhang of the Department of Biology.
“It holds the key as to why we and other eutherian mammals evolved to become animals that give birth to live young instead of egg-laying animals.”
REFERENCES
https://interestingengineering.com/researchers-explain-why-and-how-platypus-are-so-weird
Groves, C.P. (2005). “Order Monotremata”. In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
Woinarski, J.; Burbidge, A.A. (2016). “Ornithorhynchus anatinus”. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T40488A21964009. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T40488A21964009.en.
Hall, Brian K. (March 1999). “The Paradoxical Platypus”. BioScience. 49 (3): 211–8. doi:10.2307/1313511. JSTOR 1313511.
“Duck-billed Platypus”. Museum of hoaxes. Retrieved 21 July 2010.
Shaw, George; Nodder, Frederick Polydore (1799). “The Duck-Billed Platypus, Platypus anatinus”. The Naturalist’s Miscellany. 10 (CXVIII): 385–386. doi:10.5962/p.304567 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
“Platypus facts file”. Australian Platypus Conservancy. Retrieved 13 September 2006.
πλατύπους, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
πλατύς, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
πούς, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
Liddell, Henry George & Scott, Robert (1980). Greek-English Lexicon, Abridged Edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 978-0-19-910207-5.
