Platypus Is Even More Strange Than It Looks

ANCHORS: MELISSA BLOCK, MICHELE NORRIS

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

And I'm Michele Norris.

Ogden Nash established his reputation with poetry, not biology, and yet we can't resist introducing this next scientific story with a few lines of Nash's verse.

Take it away, Melissa.

BLOCK: Here we go. I'd like the duck-billed platypus because it is anomalous. I like the way it raises its family, partly birdly, partly mammaly. I like its independent attitude; let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

NORRIS: Actually, that's pretty accurate. Scientists have now completed a draft DNA sequence of the platypus genome.

And as NPR's Joe Palca reports, the platypus is, in fact, partly birdly, partly mammaly.

JOE PALCA: The platypus is definitely unusual - not just because it only lives in Australia. Richard Wilson directed the platypus genome project at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. RICHARD WILSON (Washington University School of Medicine): When the first specimens were brought back to England in the 18th century, most of the naturalists that looked at them thought that they were some sort of a fake - a taxidermist had gotten creative and sewn the bill of a duck on some sort of beaver-like creature and added webbed feet for grins.

PALCA: But the platypus is, of course, real, even if its genome is a bit strange. Most genes in the platypus make things typical of mammals - genes for fur, genes for making milk. But unlike most mammals, the platypus lays eggs. And as Wilson reports in this week's issue of the journal Nature, the platypus has the same genes birds have for making hard-shelled eggs. And that's not the only odd thing. ...

•	Platypus Is Even More Strange Than It Looks NPR All Things Considered, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 Byline: Joe Palca

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