Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Theme 1 What is environmental biology?
- Theme 2 The scientific method and the unifying theories of modern biology
- Theme 3 Applying scientific method – understanding biodiversity
- 8 Coping with cornucopia – classifying and naming biodiversity
- 9 Microscopic diversity – the prokaryotes and viruses
- 10 Mysterious diversity – the protists (including the fungi)
- 11 Plant diversity I – the greening of the land
- 12 Plant diversity II – the greening of the land
- 13 Life on the move I – introducing animal diversity
- 14 Life on the move II – the spineless majority
- 15 Life on the move III – vertebrates and other chordates
- Theme 4 Applying scientific method – biodiversity and the environment
- Theme 5 The future – applying scientific method to conserving biodiversity and restoring degraded environments
- Glossary
- Index
15 - Life on the move III – vertebrates and other chordates
from Theme 3 - Applying scientific method – understanding biodiversity
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Theme 1 What is environmental biology?
- Theme 2 The scientific method and the unifying theories of modern biology
- Theme 3 Applying scientific method – understanding biodiversity
- 8 Coping with cornucopia – classifying and naming biodiversity
- 9 Microscopic diversity – the prokaryotes and viruses
- 10 Mysterious diversity – the protists (including the fungi)
- 11 Plant diversity I – the greening of the land
- 12 Plant diversity II – the greening of the land
- 13 Life on the move I – introducing animal diversity
- 14 Life on the move II – the spineless majority
- 15 Life on the move III – vertebrates and other chordates
- Theme 4 Applying scientific method – biodiversity and the environment
- Theme 5 The future – applying scientific method to conserving biodiversity and restoring degraded environments
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
The hoax that wasn't
In 1799, British naturalist George Shaw excitedly studied an extraordinary dried specimen from the newly established colony of New South Wales. The small, otter-like animal, measuring about 35 cm, had a duck-like bill on the furred body of a four-legged animal (Plate 15.9b). He named it Platypus anatinus. Until further specimens arrived the following year, however, he worried that the remarkable animal was a surgically prepared hoax. Renowned German anatomist Johann Blumenbach had no such reservations when he received a specimen in 1800. Unaware of Shaw's work in the slow communications of those pre-internet days, he also described the new animal, naming it Ornithorhynchus paradoxus. The scientific name was ultimately resolved as Ornithorhynchus anatinus and ‘platypus’ was kept as the common name. The surprises, though, were far from over. Excavations of platypus burrows on river and creek beds revealed that, although furred, it laid eggs and nourished the newly hatched young with milk. The truth of platypus eggs was not confirmed until 1884 when William Caldwell, fresh from excavating a burrow and dissecting an egg, telegrammed from outback Queensland to a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His message read ‘monotremes oviparous, ovum meroblastic’. The platypus thus blended characteristics of reptiles, birds and mammals – most of the groups of animals with a backbone – in one species.
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- Information
- Environmental Biology , pp. 335 - 360Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009