Duck Billed Platypus

There's plenty of evidence for ancestor/ancestor-relative species of the platypus, which would be odd (and completely unnecessary) for a created animal.Here's a list of some fossil monotremes from wiki, with links to articles about the individual species identified:Monotreme - Wikipedia

And if you remembered your reading a little better, you would know that this was in the late eighteenth century. How many Darwinists do you think there were in England in the late eighteenth century?

Exactly.The strange thing about Dragoness's husband (a Dragon?) and other creationists using the platypus is that the animal can be used as a very good illustration of evolution. Aren't monotremes the closest living things to the mammal-like reptiles that evolutionary theory predicts as our ancestors?What's interesting about them is that they show clearly that breast feeding comes before live birth in our lineage, which seems to me to make sense, as the former would facilitate the latter.It's fun playing at speculative evolution, and my guess is that our branch of the common ancestor with the modern monotremes was in an environment in which its eggs were vulnerable to a predator or predators, so that any shortening of the period between laying and hatching would be an advantage, leading eventually to instant hatching, then live birth. (That's probably either so obvious that it's standard theory, or completely wrong for some reason I haven't thought of!).

I've done a bit of googling, and I see what you mean about the 200 million years. I think that I'd (wrongly) assumed that our line must've diverged from that of the platypus about 150 million years ago, because that's about when the first placentals appear.I suppose that the "living fossil" view of the platypus comes mainly from the fact that they're amniotes. But what I found interesting in your post was the idea that placentals might retain therapsid characteristics that were lost or modified in monotremes, and indeed, why not? So I was wondering if you had anything particular in mind, even if just speculative ideas.

Interesting link, jar.It also seems to confirm that the monotremes split off our branch earlier than marsupials, rather than a split involving a common ancestor of monotremes and marsupials, then the two as "twigs" of that branch (if I understood rightly). Also, that imprinted genes could be vestigial in higher mammals, although they don't know yet.

Actually, I might have a quick one without googling. Teeth. Platypus babies still have them, but not adults. Would that fit the bill?

Cheers, but to be honest, there was no work. Early on in the thread, I put in a link to a wiki page on monotreme fossils, and it was somewhere there that I read that the adults were toothless, and thought that it was mildly interesting. If I'd really been smart, I'd of made the connection when you first mentioned the idea of placentals retaining characteristics which the monotremes didn't have.So, in a sense, if the platypus is a living fossil, so are we! Edited by bluegenes, : Typo!

Glad your family's safe, and best wishes. What can I say but that will be looking forward to hearing from you when things settle down, and I hope you'll all be O.K.Don't worry about the topic, we're learning a lot. It's a good one.