Quote Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing View Post
Amazing article that explains hoe we got here :

When the British naturalist George Shaw received a weird specimen from Australia in 1799 -- one with a mole's fur, a duck's bill and serpentlike spurs on its rear legs -- he did what any skeptical scientist would do: He looked for the stitching and glue that would reveal it to be a hoax.
"It was impossible not to entertain some distant doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal," Shaw wrote of the seemingly built-by-committee creature, which he eventually named "platypus," for its flat, webbed feet.
Now, more than 200 years later, a team of scientists has determined the platypus's entire genetic code. And right down to its DNA, it turns out, the animal continues to strain credulity, bearing genetic modules that are in turn mammalian, reptilian and avian.
There are genes for egg laying -- evidence of its reptilian roots. Genes for making milk, which the platypus does in mammalian style despite not having nipples. Genes for making snake venom, which the animal stores in its legs. And there are five times as many sex-determining chromosomes as scientists know what to do with.




washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines
There was a young Rabbi out here just starting out and he got on telly for using the Platypus as living proof that God has a sence of humour.