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May 08, 2008
Platypus: Perfect Storm of Incredulity
Now, more than 200 years later, a team of scientists has determined the platypus' entire genetic code. And right down to its DNA, it turns out, the platypus continues to strain credulity, bearing genetic modules that are in turn mammalian, reptilian and avian.There are genes for egg laying — evidence of the animals' 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 more sex-determining chromosomes than scientists know what to do with.
"It's such a wacky organism," said Richard Wilson, director of the genome center at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the two-year international effort, described online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
(via feednews, chicagotribune)
Posted by Groonk at May 8, 2008 04:31 PM | Ministry of Animals
