Giant platypus discovered in Australia

[DavidBrown]

A platypus the size of a bus* has been discovered in Australia. It lived 5 to 15 million years ago.

Giant Platypus Found, Shakes Up Evolutionary Tree


* a 3 foot long bus

 

[Kakapo]

Always interesting to discover fossils from reduced taxons. But, I never saw a bus of only one meter long

 

[Hix]

Interesting the caption says they ate lungfish and small turtles. The average lungish is a metre long and weighs around 20kg. For a metre long predator that would be a bit of a mounthful unless you're ripping it apart, and i don't think the teeth were designed for that. Especially as it's beleived the other platypus fed on small crustaceans, insects and their larvae, and maybe small frogs.



Hix

 

[Chlidonias]

In my view, suggesting the animal was a metre long based on the tooth may be a bit rash. They make the point that the tooth was much larger than those of other known platypus species. There is the possibility that if it was (as it seems to be) adapted for a more predatory lifestyle than other species, it had simply evolved larger teeth to take larger prey. The body size may not be equivalent to if otherspecies had teeth of that size. There are so few species known that one cannot say all had teeth of the same relative size to one another.

 

[vogelcommando]

Intresting article about the discovery of the "normal" Platypus :
Why 19th-Century Naturalists Didn't Believe in the Platypus | Atlas Obscura

 

[DavidBrown]

Intresting article about the discovery of the "normal" Platypus :
Why 19th-Century Naturalists Didn't Believe in the Platypus | Atlas Obscura

That was a fun and interesting story. Thanks for posting it, vogelcommando.

 

[nanoboy]

In my view, suggesting the animal was a metre long based on the tooth may be a bit rash. They make the point that the tooth was much larger than those of other known platypus species. There is the possibility that if it was (as it seems to be) adapted for a more predatory lifestyle than other species, it had simply evolved larger teeth to take larger prey. The body size may not be equivalent to if otherspecies had teeth of that size. There are so few species known that one cannot say all had teeth of the same relative size to one another.

Or maybe it was a platypus specimen with large teeth.