27th September 2004, 7:15 PM
Those things have a duck's bill, and a beaver's tail. They have pouches like opposums, and lay frickin' eggs.
Then there's the kicker. The platypus is venemous. That's right, you heard me, it's frickin' VENEMOUS. No fangs, or stingers. It's the claws. And no, not even the FRONT claws. It's two claws on it's BACK legs, INNER leg! What manner of biology would FORM like that? The venom itself isn't even fatal. It only makes you WISH you were dead. No neural attack, or attacking heart tissue, or necrotic tissue damage, or blood damage, or even just plain toxin overload attacking pretty much whatever. It's special, it's a venom specially formulated to attack ONE thing, PAIN NERVES. It doesn't even affect other types of nerve endings, just pain nervs, sending them into overdrive. It's actually one of the most painful things that could happen, and it's completely harmless aside from the swelling reactoin from the pain.
So then, you have this hilarious joke of a creature. What could possibly be more hilarious? The poor guy who got stung by a platypus having to tell his story to some doctor.
Then there's the kicker. The platypus is venemous. That's right, you heard me, it's frickin' VENEMOUS. No fangs, or stingers. It's the claws. And no, not even the FRONT claws. It's two claws on it's BACK legs, INNER leg! What manner of biology would FORM like that? The venom itself isn't even fatal. It only makes you WISH you were dead. No neural attack, or attacking heart tissue, or necrotic tissue damage, or blood damage, or even just plain toxin overload attacking pretty much whatever. It's special, it's a venom specially formulated to attack ONE thing, PAIN NERVES. It doesn't even affect other types of nerve endings, just pain nervs, sending them into overdrive. It's actually one of the most painful things that could happen, and it's completely harmless aside from the swelling reactoin from the pain.
So then, you have this hilarious joke of a creature. What could possibly be more hilarious? The poor guy who got stung by a platypus having to tell his story to some doctor.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)