[harmonnia]

What are four reasons the London scientists dismissed the platypus as a fake?
What are four characteristics of the platypus that make it like no other animal and why is it placed into the group mammlia

[raymond47]

Lets see if I can remember...
1. has a duck bill...
2. lays eggs
3. Has milk for young
4. webbed feet
I could be wrong on some of these but will check later.

[nishant_yagnick]

I don't know of any exact 4 reasons for the initial rejection by london scientists.but what happened(historically), was that before the discovery of the platypus, there was another similar discovery, that rocked the world of zoologists, of a reptile like animal with mammary glands that turned out to be a fake. So there was much skepticism about the platypus when it was first described. But I'm sure there are no longer any rejections to the characters and existence of the platypus.
The characters that differentiate its uniqueness are as follows:
1)a duck like bill(hence called the duck billed platypus)
2)webbed feet
3)leathery feet, but fur like skin texture(unique to mammals)
4)egg layer(only one of two mammals to do so)
(also eggs are reptile like, with lotsa yolk)
5)a spike at the cloacal opening, fertilization is also cloacal
But what characterises it as a mammal are the mammary glands it possesses, that its young ones suckle on. This is the truly distinguishing ammalian character.

[sovaira]

Platypuses
Are included in the egg laying type of mammals.


For info there are 3 types,marsupial:kangaroos
Egg laying : platypuses
Placental: like us



The only characteristic that platypus shares with us or mamals ist hat it feeds milk to its youngones




Till now they are known to be a part or class mamalia, olthough they are also a part of transitional taxonomy, of sharing their few chracteristics with wetland birds and reptiles. This feature may led scientists to border it away from mamals. But this isn't enough proof as they share their genomic resemblance with mamals somehow.


Something more important that brushes the confusions away is the genetics of the animals rather than morphology,no doubt morphological features can't be ignored in any way.


This post airs the spirit of this discussion and can evoke new ideas and research.