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Platypuses Emerged 120 Million Years Ago

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Since no other mammal, including echidnas, can surpass the electro detection abilities of the platypus, researchers had thought this was a relatively new, "high-tech" skill that the animal evolved. They were very surprised to discover that the ancient close relative of platypuses had the ability too.

A larger question is, how did such an unusual creature, with its venom, duck bill, beaver tail and otter-like feet, emerge in the first place, and how did it survive the devastating dino extinction event?

Kenneth Angielczyk, assistant curator of paleomammalogy at The Field Museum in Chicago, told Discovery News that the platypus might have benefited by the fact that it was not a top predator.

"Work that we've done so far suggests that poor competitors, i.e., weedy species, have an advantage when disturbance strikes, perhaps because they can do a lot of different things to survive, but don't do any of them well enough to be strong competitors under normal circumstances," he explained.

Angielczyk, along with colleagues Steven Wang and Peter Roopnarine, also announced their research at this week's SVP meeting.

They found that carnivore-rich, but herbivore-poor, animal communities tend to not fare as well as communities with a lot of vegetation consumers. The former, which dominated the planet from around 318-270 million years ago, faded off over time.

While the platypus is not a veg-loving herbivore, it is now known that it squeaked past the mass extinction event.

Angielczyk said, "Maybe the platypus was just in the right place at the right time."