Glow-in-the-dark platypus, new research

This August 2020 video from Australia says about itself:

Platypus: The King of Weirdos

In the finale of Season 4 of Animalogic, Danielle ventures into Victoria’s Otway ranges in search of a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; the Platypus.

This episode was shot earlier this year before the mandatory lock down.

From ScienceDaily:

Shining a (UV) light on the glow-in-the-dark platypus

Biofluorescent fur could help some mammals spot each other after dark

October 29, 2020

The fur of the platypus — an Australian species threatened with extinction — glows green under ultraviolet light, a new study finds. This is the first observation of biofluorescence in an egg-laying mammal (monotreme), suggesting this extraordinary trait may not be as rare as previously thought.

The research article “Biofluorescence in the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)” was published in De Gruyter’s international journal Mammalia.

Two mammals — the opossum and the flying squirrel — are already known to have fur that biofluoresces under ultraviolet (UV) light.

One of the paper’s authors discovered pink biofluorescence in flying squirrels by accident while conducting a night survey for lichens, a finding reported in an earlier paper. While confirming this field observation with preserved museum specimens, the researchers decided to examine the platypuses in the next drawer along too.

They studied three museum platypus specimens: a female and a male from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and another male specimen from the University of Nebraska State Museum.

In visible light, the fur of all three platypus specimens was uniformly brown. But under UV light they appeared green or cyan. The fur of the platypus absorbs UV (wavelengths of 200-400 nanometers) and re-emits visible light (of 500-600 nanometers), making it fluoresce.

Like the marsupial opossum and the placental flying squirrel, platypuses are most active during the night and at dawn and dusk. It may be that these mammals — and possibly others — developed biofluorescence to adapt to low light conditions. The researchers suggest this may be a way for platypuses to see and interact with each other in the dark.

The researchers would now like to work with an Australian team to observe biofluorescence in wild animals. And with colleagues at Northland College and Colorado State University, they are working on a project to further explore the phenomenon across the mammalian family tree.

“It was a mix of serendipity and curiosity that led us to shine a UV light on the platypuses at the Field Museum,” said lead author Professor Paula Spaeth Anich, Associate Professor of Biology and Natural Resources at Northland College. “But we were also interested in seeing how deep in the mammalian tree the trait of biofluorescent fur went. It’s thought that monotremes branched off the marsupial-placental lineage more than 150 million years ago. So, it was intriguing to see that animals that were such distant relatives also had biofluorescent fur.”

How baby marsupials and monotremes drink milk

This 2019 video says about itself:

Mom Platypuses Laying Eggs And Cute Platypuses Moments

The platypus, sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.

The animal is the sole living representative of its family and genus, though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. The first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body judged it a fake, made of several animals sewn together.

From eLife:

Hints at jaw evolution found in marsupials and monotremes

June 30, 2020

Infant marsupials and monotremes use a connection between their ear and jawbones shortly after birth to enable them to drink their mothers’ milk, new findings in eLife reveal.

This discovery by researchers at King’s College London, UK, provides new insights about early development in mammals, and may help scientists better understand how the bones of the middle ear and jaw evolved in mammals and their predecessors.

Marsupials such as opossums, and monotremes such as echidnas, are unusual types of mammals. Both types of animal are born at a very early stage in development, before many bones in the body have started to form. Opossums latch on to their mother’s nipple and stay there while they finish developing. Monotremes, which hatch from eggs, lap milk collected near their mother’s milk glands as they grow. But how they are able to drink the milk before their jaw joint is fully developed was previously unclear.

“Given the lack of a jaw joint in marsupials and monotremes at birth, scientists have previously suggested that the animals may use a connection between the middle ear bones and jaw bones to allow them to feed,” explains lead author Neal Anthwal, Research Associate at the Centre for Craniofacial & Regenerative Biology, at King’s College London’s Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences in the UK.

To find out if this is true, Anthwal and his colleagues compared the jaw bones in platypus, short-beaked echidnas, opossums and mice shortly after birth. Their work revealed that, soon after echidnas hatch, their middle ear bones and upper jaw fuse, eventually forming a joint that is similar to the jaws of mammal-like reptile fossils. The team found a similar connection in mouse embryos, but this disappears and the animals are born with functioning jaw joints.

Opossums, by contrast, use connective tissue between their middle ear bones and the base of their skull to create a temporary jaw joint that enables them to nurse shortly after birth. “This all shows that marsupials and monotremes have different strategies for coping with early birth,” Anthwal says.

The findings suggest that the connection between the ear and jaw dates back to an early mammal ancestor and persisted when mammals split into subgroups. Marsupials and monotremes continue to use these connections temporarily in early life. In other mammals, such as mice, these connections occur briefly as they develop in the womb but are replaced by a working jaw joint before birth.

“Our work provides novel insight into the evolution of mammals,” concludes senior author Abigail Tucker, Principal Investigator and Professor of Development & Evolution at the Centre for Craniofacial & Regenerative Biology, King’s College London. “In particular we highlight how structures can change function over evolutionary time but also during development, with the ear bones moving from feeding to hearing. The recent availability of monotreme tissue for molecular analysis, as showcased here, provides an amazing future opportunity to understand the biology of these weird and wonderful mammals, which we are keen to explore.”

Australian azure kingfisher helped by platypus

This 13 November 2019 BBC video from Australia says about itself:

A resourceful [azure] kingfisher has an unlikely fishing buddy in the form of a platypus.

Australia’s devastating drought is having a critical impact on the iconic platypus, a globally unique mammal, with increasing reports of rivers drying up and platypuses becoming stranded: here.

Mysterious echidna in London, England museum

This 17 June 2019 video from England says about itself:

What’s wrong with this echidna in the collection? | Natural History Museum

Echidnas are unusual among mammals, laying eggs and producing milk for their young.

But they might be more quirky than you think, with one particular feature confusing scientists in Europe when they saw one for the first time.

The Natural History Museum in London is home to over 80 million specimens, including meteorites, dinosaur bones and a giant squid.

Platypus milk saving human lives

This video from Australia says about itself:

Scientists discover unique protein in platypus milk that could save lives

14 March 2018

CSIRO molecular biologists working with Deakin University researchers have isolated the monotreme lactation protein structure for the first time, identifying a novel three-dimensional fold that the researchers say could lead to the creation of a new type of antibiotics.

From CSIRO Australia:

Saving lives with platypus milk

March 15, 2018

A breakthrough by Australian scientists has brought the introduction of an unlikely hero in the global fight against antibiotic resistance a step closer; the humble platypus.

Due to its unique features — duck-billed, egg-laying, beaver-tailed and venomous- the platypus has long exerted a powerful appeal to scientists, making it an important subject in the study of evolutionary biology.

In 2010 scientists discovered that platypus milk contained unique antibacterial properties that could be used to fight superbugs.

Now a team of researchers at Australia’s national research agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Oganisation (CSIRO), and Deakin University have solved a puzzle that helps explain why platypus milk is so potent — bringing it one step closer to being used to save lives.

The discovery was made by replicating a special protein contained in platypus milk in a laboratory setting.

“Platypus are such weird animals that it would make sense for them to have weird biochemistry”, CSIRO scientist and lead author on the research published in Structural Biology Communications, Dr Janet Newman said.

“The platypus belongs to the monotreme family, a small group of mammals that lay eggs and produce milk to feed their young. By taking a closer look at their milk, we’ve characterised a new protein that has unique antibacterial properties with the potential to save lives.”

As platypus don’t have teats, they express milk onto their belly for the young to suckle, exposing the mother’s highly nutritious milk to the environment, leaving babies susceptible to the perils of bacteria.

Deakin University’s Dr Julie Sharp said researchers believed this was why the platypus milk contained a protein with rather unusual and protective antibacterial characteristics.

“We were interested to examine the protein’s structure and characteristics to find out exactly what part of the protein was doing what”, she said.

Employing the marvels of molecular biology, the Synchrotron, and CSIRO’s state of the art Collaborative Crystallisation Centre (C3), the team successfully made the protein, then deciphered its structure to get a better look at it.

What they found was a unique, never-before-seen 3D fold.

Due to its ringlet-like formation, the researchers have dubbed the newly discovered protein fold the ‘Shirley Temple‘, in tribute to the former child-actor’s distinctive curly hair.

Dr Newman said finding the new protein fold was pretty special.

“Although we’ve identified this highly unusual protein as only existing in monotremes, this discovery increases our knowledge of protein structures in general, and will go on to inform other drug discovery work done at the Centre”, she said.

In 2014 the World Health Organisation released a report highlighting the scale of the global threat posed by antibiotic resistance, pleading for urgent action to avoid a “post-antibiotic era,” where common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill.

The scientists are seeking collaborators to take the potentially life-saving platypus research to the next stage.

Background:

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria that were once responsive to antimicrobial treatments like antibiotics build up a resistance and then pass that resistance on to their next generation. This leads to ineffective treatments and more persistent infections, caused by these resistant ‘Superbugs‘.

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Australian echidnas help other wildlife

This video says about itself:

13 August 2015

The “short-beaked echidna” is one of four living species of echidna and the only member of the genus “Tachyglossus”. The short-beaked echidna is covered in fur and spines and has a distinctive snout and a specialized tongue, which it uses to catch its prey at a great speed. Like the other extant monotremes, the short-beaked echidna lays eggs; the monotremes are the only group of mammals to do so.

From Science News:

An echidna’s to-do list: Sleep. Eat. Dig up Australia.

Short-beaked species of this mammal is a valuable ecosystem engineer

By Susan Milius

12:00pm, November 18, 2016

With no nipples and reptilelike eggs, short-beaked echidnas look like a first draft of a mammal. Yet, as Australia’s other digging mammals decline from invasive predators, the well-defended echidna is getting new love as an ecosystem engineer.

The only mammals today that lay eggs are the four echidna species and the duck-billed platypus. Eggs are probably a holdover from the time before mammals split from reptiles. Each year or so, the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) lays one leathery egg “about the size of a grape,” says Christine Cooper of Curtin University in Perth. Instead of constructing a nest, mom deposits the egg in her version of a kangaroo pouch and waddles around with it.

When the egg hatches about 10 days later, two patches of pores in mom’s pouch ooze milk, and the baby laps it off her skin. The puggle, as a baby echidna is called, hitchhikes for weeks as mom forages. The ride ends, however, when the puggle starts growing spines. “Then mum’s like, ‘Nope, no more,’ and she will put [baby] into a burrow,” Cooper says.

Puggles live in mom’s pouch until they get prickly.

Ben Nottidge/Alamy Stock Photo

Foraging echidnas claw around and poke their snouts into termite or ant nests, flicking out a long gooey tongue to flypaper up insects. The goo comes from unusually large salivary glands, but a quick echidna lick doesn’t slime. When Cooper wears sandals to visit captive echidnas, she says, “it’s ‘ooh, that tickles!’”

Echidnas’ toes point backward on their hind paws but forward on the front, and their short legs slant outward in a bit of a reptile sprawl, says Christofer Clemente of University of the Sunshine Coast in Sippy Downs, Australia. They rock side to side as they walk, moving both left, then both right feet. They can’t run, but they’re strong diggers, Clemente says. They not only claw around for food, but also defend their soft undersides by quick-digging into the ground, spikes up.

Acceleration-sensing instruments strapped onto short-beaked echidnas show they spend about 12 percent of their day excavating, researchers report in the Oct. 15 Journal of Experimental Biology. Over a year, a single echidna churns up some 204 cubic meters of soil, the scientists calculate, as it hunts for insects or scrabbles for shelter.  That’s enough to bury more than 100 full-sized fridges.

That digging benefits the echidna’s unusual diversity of habitat — from rainforest to desert. Echidnas don’t need to bury fridges, but soil turnover and nutrient mixing keep ecosystems humming along.

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Baby echidna recovering from bulldozer in Australia

This video from Australia says about itself:

Meet Newman the Echidna Puggle at the Taronga Zoo

17 April 2015

Newman was rescued after its burrow was damaged by a bulldozer, injuring the little echidna. Keepers have nursed the baby back to health and it is now thriving under their care.

More, including photos, about this is here.

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Echidna hatching from egg, video

This video says about itself:

The echidna is quite unique as it’s a mammal that lays eggs rather than giving birth to live young. This clip is an excerpt from our 1974 production, “Comparative biology of lactation”. A young echidna is called a puggle.

Video transcript available here.

From Smithsonian magazine in the USA:

Watch This Adorable Mammal Hatch From an Egg

A 1974 nature video shows a spiny anteater hatching

By Mary Beth Griggs

Via one of our favorite video blogs, The Kids Should See This, check out this incredible video of an echidna—also known as a spiny anteater—hatching from an egg. Echidnas live in Australia and on the island of New Guinea, and they are some of the only egg laying mammals in existence, along with the fantastically weird platypus.

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO, made this video in 1974. On the organization’s YouTube page, there are many more examples of wonderfully weird old example[s] of animal videos, including vintage favorites like the echidna hatching or a 1965 educational video about the birth of a red kangaroo. (That last one shows the actual birth of a live kangaroo and is not for the faint of heart.)

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Australian crayfish traps which don’t drown platypus

This video is called Platypus – The World’s Strangest Animal (Nature Documentary).

From Wildlife Extra:

New design crayfish traps will save platypus from drowning

The Australian Platypus Conservancy (APC) has been carrying out trials on a new design of a type of crayfish trap called an opera house trap. Opera house traps are widely sold in Australia to deploy in rivers to catch crayfish for eating. Unfortunately, these same rivers are populated by air-breathing platypus that cannot escape from the traps once they have entered them and so drown. The new design is fitted with a circular escape hatch in the roof, through which platypus can find their way back out. The research, funded by the Taronga Conservation Society, involved 34 adults and 24 juvenile platypus to establish how easily the animals found the escape holes.

Of the four animals tested during daylight hours, all escaped within one minute of being introduced to a trap. At night, 63 per cent of tested animals managed to find their own way out within one minute and 19 per cent in 1-2 minutes. All exited via the escape hatch in the roof. Given that a platypus can hold its breath for approximately two and a half minutes when active, these findings suggest that a large proportion of wild platypus are likely to escape from a modified trap before they drown.

APC believes that to ensure that crayfish catching practices are both ethical and environmentally sustainable, opera house traps should clearly not be set in water bodies where platypus regularly occur, even if the traps are fitted with escape hatches. Traps can lawfully be set only in private farm dams and the like.

However, given the very large numbers of opera house traps purchased annually across the platypus’s range, it is inevitable that some will be deployed in rivers and streams supporting platypus, even in places where such use is banned. Although opera house traps fitted with an escape hatch are not completely platypus-safe, they certainly present less risk to animals than the standard design.

Accordingly, APC advocates that sale of standard opera house traps should be universally phased out as soon as possible. This change is also likely to assist conservation of freshwater turtles and native Australian water-rats (or rakali), both of which are more likely to inhabit farm dams than are platypus.

Studies assessing the ability of turtles to escape from opera house traps fitted with an escape hatch are currently being completed by Turtles Australia in partnership with the APC.

For more information visit www.platypus.asn.au.

This 2015 video is called Rare Footage of Baby Platypuses Hatching.

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Australian echidnas’ spurs, new research

This video is called World’s Weirdest: Echidna

From The University of Sydney in Australia:

Echidna spur not venomous

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

The echidna‘s spur is used for communicating during breeding, not venom.

The function of a spur on the hind leg of echidnas has been revealed by research at the University of Sydney.

Male platypuses and echidnas both secrete from a spur in their hind leg. In platypuses the spur injects venom into competitors causing pain and swelling but the purpose of the echidna spur and secreted substance has been unclear.

“A waxy secretion is produced around the base on the echidna spur, and we have shown that it is not venomous but is used for communicating during breeding,” said Professor Kathy Belov, lead author of the study published in PLOS One.

Professor Belov is from the University’s Faculty of Veterinary Science.

Monotremes are egg-laying mammals and Australia and New Guinea are the only places in the world that have living species. Australia is home to the platypus and short-beaked echidna.

One of monotremes’ unique characteristics is spurs on the males’ hind legs. In platypuses the gland attached to the spur increases in size during the breeding season and produces a venom injected into competing males during the breeding season.

In male echidnas, spurs are in the same position and the glands also get bigger during the breeding season. But the spur cannot be erected and there have never been reports of envenomations by echidnas.

“There is physiological, molecular and fossil evidence to suggest the ancestors of both platypuses and echidnas were venomous,” said Professor Belov.

In a collaboration with the University of Queensland, University of Tasmania, and Washington University School of Medicine, researchers from the University of Sydney compared the genes switched on in platypuses’ and short-beaked echidnas’ venom glands during the breeding season.

The study analysed the RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules in the two glands, looking for similarities and differences in order to determine the function of the secretions in echidnas and to understand the evolutionary history of the venom gland.

“We expected to see high levels of similarity between the two species but were fascinated to discover that the echidna ‘venom’ gland secretion was markedly different to that from a platypus,” Professor Belov said.

“There was no correlation between the top 50 most highly expressed genes in the echidna and platypus secretions. They produce completely different secretions.

“Overall the echidna gland looks more like a scent gland. Instead of its aggressive spurring role the echidna’s spur secretion is probably linked with either communicating its reproductive status with females or with competing males.

“Historically the monotreme gland contained venom. The loss of the echidna’s ability to erect its spur and other unknown evolutionary forces have acted over millions of years,” said Professor Belov.

“This evolution has resulted in the gradual disappearance of the venom in the spur secretion and the evolution of a new role for the gland.”

Related articles

• Researchers discover echidna spurs not venomous (theage.com.au)
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• Giant Platypus Found, Shakes Up Evolutionary Tree (news.nationalgeographic.com)
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