Show loris(big eyes), African crested rat(spiky hair), Cuban solenodon(shrew like thing), and of course the platypus.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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Slow loris. And yes the image shows loris. lol.
Damn autocorrect
I was only aware of a platypus. Is it all administered through some barb like appendage on the legs? Which one shoots venom missiles?
The loris and the solenodon have toxic saliva. The rat is controversial as it slathers chewed up poison dart tree on itself so hairs absorb it but it doesn't produce venom/poison itself. Not sure of any "venom missiles" from mammals.
Are the toxins in the saliva a product of bacteria (as it happens with komodo dragons) or do the mammals themselves produce the toxins?
Solenodons have a modified salivary gland and a sort of channel for the venom, related fossils show full on hollow teeth similar a snake.
The slow loris mixes their sweat with their saliva(both saliva and sweat are toxic).
However in both cases I'm not sure about the molecular details of toxin production. E.g. whether the loris or solenodon just carry certain bacteria that make the toxin or whether they produce from their own cells.
I think it was shown komodo dragons do produce their own venom as well as having bacteria ridden mouths
Damn rats are smart.
No scients teatcher would say that
I have some depressing news for you about southern education.
(for clarification I know some schools are good but most are not. My middle school state history teacher said that slaves in my state had it good; because we were unique in having laws about how hard you can beat slaves. Which is untrue and also they were not enforced for obvious reasons.)
Creationist ones might
English teachers: 😢
TIL mammals can lay eggs.
All mammals lay eggs. Most of them just lay eggs inside themselves.
If you're gonna be anal about it, technically "laying" could be argued to be inaccurate, (although then you'd get into the semantics about how it's technically referring to careful putting down, and I don't know if you could argue that for like, pigeons), but I'd definitely agree that all mammals have eggs.
They all are so cute I want to hug them
That’s the most evil looking platypus I’ve ever seen. Maybe the only not cute picture that exists.
Recently went down the rabbit hole (ok, I'm lying, I just read a Wikipedia article and one scientific study), and found out that the venomousness of the platypus has crazy implications for mammal evolution:
In spite of the rarity of venom among extant mammals, venom may be an ancestral feature among mammals, as venomous spurs akin to those of the modern platypus are found in most non-therian Mammaliaformes groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venomous_mammal
(The monotremes are the platypus and the echidna, which unlike the platypus isn't venomous but still has the spurs.)
"teat"cher.. well they ARE mammals?
Awww
Wait, the Slow Loris and shrew are venomous???