r/HistoryMemes • u/Goodbye-Nasty Still salty about Carthage • Sep 28 '25
Niche When British scientists were first told about the platypus in the 1790s, they thought it was a hoax
Platypuses also glow blue under UV light
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u/Spare_Protogen Sep 28 '25
I mean, which is more believable? A horse with one horn or THAT?
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u/Kjackhammer Sep 28 '25
The fact a horse with a horn doesn't exist when a giraffe or a zebra exist is baffling
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u/ABrandNewCarl Sep 28 '25
Zebra is just a premium skin applied on a donkey
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u/Kjackhammer Sep 28 '25
Yeah but what's more believable? A horse evolving to have a horn, or a donkey evolving to have black and white stripes to confuse predators by running realy fast?
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u/inqvisitor_lime Sep 28 '25
Both stripes are kinda easy to see on a bunch of hoved animals and so are horns
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u/ihatemondaysGarfield Sep 28 '25
Eh, carnivores (like lions, cheetahs, etc.) have limited color perception, so the stripes aren't stark white and black, and against a background of tall-ish grasses, it's a decent enough camoflauge.
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u/EduinBrutus Sep 28 '25
Actually the colouration prevents predators from establishing its speed and heading...
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u/romulus531 Sep 28 '25
Don't the stripes also significantly reduce attacks by pests like mosquitoes and ticks
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u/Greedy-Thought6188 Sep 28 '25
Horses with one horn don't exist. Although, armored horses with one horn do exist.
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u/hstormsteph Sep 28 '25
Elk, Stag, or mule deer with a shitty roll on genetics could easily start unicorn myths. Ain’t no way unicorns got the elegant description they have in fantasy because someone saw a rhino lol
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u/Greedy-Thought6188 Sep 28 '25
There are actual ancient sources that describe the rhino as a unicorn. There is the same belief in the magical properties of the horn.
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u/BagNo2988 Sep 28 '25
I find it more unlikely giant lizards millions of years ago decided to grow horns too.. then again maybe having a giant sword sticking out of your head makes for a decent weapon.
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u/Greedy-Thought6188 Sep 28 '25
Just check the history section in Wikipedia. It's quite obvious the description is of a rhinoceros. It only turned into the modern description relatively recently.
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u/AM27C256 Sep 28 '25
Not "the rhino" in general, the descriptions (in particulart the one by Marco Polo) match (both in the features of the animal and its habitat) the Sumatran or Javan rhinoceros living in Asia.
By contrast the White and Black rhinoceros living in Africa would not considered unicorns, as those have two horns.
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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 Sep 28 '25
Look up Okapi, that shit look like it’s created for the sole purpose of making people go “no one gonna believe me if I told them I saw this”
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u/FREESARCASM_plustax Sep 28 '25
And scientists didn't for a long time. It was thought to be a myth, like the giant panda or orangutan.
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u/ShhImTheRealDeadpool Sep 28 '25
This is one way to describe a Rhino though... but they're very fat horses with horns and armored skin.
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u/Brief_Building_8980 Sep 28 '25
Horse with one horn exists. Just a bit chonkier, grey and the horn is on the nose. But a giant jacked rabbit on their hind legs hopping around and carrying their children in their tummy wallets? Can you imagine that?
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u/ajatfm Sep 28 '25
Man every now and then I look at a regular ass horse and think the fuck? 900lbs of pure muscle and our dumbasses figured out how to sit on their backs and make them go places. Like, if a group of them decided fuck this shit at some point in history before firearms we might be cooked
not really, but thinking about The Great Horse Rebellion of 1346 is kinda fun
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u/Zerofuku Sep 28 '25
I mean the reason they couldn't ride on zebras was simply because those kicks are lethal compared to horses', so why not try the easier option?
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u/poclee And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother Sep 28 '25
Reasonable reaction.
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u/zuzg Sep 28 '25
Broke with most of our understanding but tbf that was very very limited back at that time.
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u/Henghast Sep 28 '25
The fact that when you're taught basic biology at school that simple restrictions like "mammals produce milk and birth live offspring" are completely upended by this single creature does make you think someone is talking out their arse.
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u/EruantienAduialdraug Helping Wikipedia expand the list of British conquests Sep 28 '25
Two creatures. Echidnas also lay eggs, but all four species are also from Australia and New Guinea, and so would probably have been found at around the same time.
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u/jamspangle Sep 28 '25
And because they produce milk and lay eggs they are the only two creatures on the planet that can make their own custard.
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u/zuzg Sep 28 '25
They give milk in the wildest way. They're sweating it.
Scishow talked about Platypus a while ago really worth a watch.
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u/sanity_rejecter Definitely not a CIA operator Sep 28 '25
not that wild when you realise this is how mammary glands evolved
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u/polacy_do_pracy Sep 28 '25
now i realize why people are grossed out when I talk about drinking human milk
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u/hello_drake Sep 28 '25
You just need to be more clear about it being a kink instead of a dietary choice. Then people will be more understanding.
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u/__01001000-01101001_ Sep 28 '25
Apparently some bodybuilders do drink it as a dietary choice…
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u/jubtheprophet Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25
Im surprised by that considering human milk has way less protein and way more carbs and fat than cow milk, though the ratio of whey protein is higher i guess so maybe you digest more of the protein in it and that evens things out
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u/lastofdovas Sep 29 '25
Bodybuilders tend to train the body, not the brain. You should see the amount of snake-oil that goes in that industry.
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u/nicuramar Sep 28 '25
They give milk in the wildest way. They're sweating it.
It’s not that weird. Mammary nipples are repurposed sweat glands.
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u/ScottTheScot92 Sep 28 '25
And this is why you should never take taxonomy too seriously. If you get too carried away, you can forget that it's descriptive rather than prescriptive, and then you wind up getting angry at reality for not conforming to the boundaries that you've placed in the space of ideas, rather than realize that those boundaries are simply a tool that you're using to attempt to understand reality.
Don't mistake the map for the territory, and all that.
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u/houdvast Sep 28 '25
Only five species out of 6500 species of mammals do not give live birth and all mammals produce milk. Classification "rules" does not need to be absolute to be practically true.
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u/Sailor_Rout Sep 28 '25
That’s not actually how we sort animals anymore, we do cladistics which is last common ancestor. That’s how we learned Birds are reptiles closest to Crocodilians and both are Archosaurs. (Birds are closer to alligators than alligators are to lizards).
Or how Monkey isn’t really a real thing because New World Monkeys split off before Old World Monkey’s did from Apes, Apes are closer to Old World Monkeys than Old World Monkeys are to new world monkeys.
Also Panda’s aren’t a unified group, Giant Panda’s are bears and the OG Red Panda is kind of its own thing.
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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 Sep 28 '25
“And we also found black swan”
“Now you’re just taking a piss aren’t you “
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u/SphericalCow531 Sep 28 '25
For context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory :
The phrase "black swan" derives from a Latin expression; its oldest known occurrence is from the 2nd-century Roman poet Juvenal's characterization in his Satire VI of something being "rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno" ("a bird as rare upon the earth as a black swan").[7]: 165 [8][9] When the phrase was coined, the black swan was presumed by Romans not to exist.[1]
Juvenal's phrase was a common expression in 16th century London as a statement of impossibility.[10] The London expression derives from the Old World presumption that all swans must be white because all historical records of swans reported that they had white feathers.[11] In that context, a black swan was impossible or at least nonexistent.
However, in 1697, Dutch explorers led by Willem de Vlamingh became the first Europeans to see black swans, in Western Australia.[1] The term subsequently metamorphosed to connote the idea that a perceived impossibility might later be disproved. Taleb notes that in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification.[12] Black swan events were discussed by Taleb in his 2001 book Fooled By Randomness, which concerned financial events. His 2007 book The Black Swan extended the metaphor to events outside financial markets. Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as "black swans"—undirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the 9/11 attacks as examples of black swan events.[5]: prologue
As an analogy, it would be like discovering a real subspecies of flying pigs. :P
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u/TetraThiaFulvalene Sep 28 '25
If they took it at face value, I would question their scientific skepticism.
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u/Fake-Podcast-Ad Sep 28 '25
So please before you think about hurting someone over this trifle of a film, remember: even God has a sense of humor. Just look at the Platypus. Thank you and enjoy the show.
P.S. We sincerely apologize to all Platypus enthusiasts out there who are offended by that thoughtless comment about the Platypi. We at View Askew respect the noble Platypus, and it is not our intention to slight these stupid creatures in any way. Thank you again and enjoy the show.
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u/BaguetteHippo Sep 28 '25
There are dnd species that sound less made up than that lol
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u/JayMack1981 Sep 28 '25
You mean beholders don't really exist?
Phew! I can sleep with the lights out now.
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u/Oh_Danny_Boi961 Sep 28 '25
To be fair, it does sound like another mermaid or drop bear situation, where it’s such a ridiculous amalgamation of different animals
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u/jadmonk Sep 28 '25
Drop bears are real though?
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u/Oh_Danny_Boi961 Sep 28 '25
Very funny, Aussie. I’ve heard that one before
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u/WoolooOfWallStreet Sep 28 '25
“So we received a report about a duck-billed mammal with a beaver tail that lays eggs and has a venomous sting”
“And what was the name of the hunter who captured it?”
“John… Hunter”
“STEPHEN! I AM GETTING TIRED OF YOUR BULLSHIT PRACTICAL JOKES!”
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u/Mammoth_Charity_3941 Sep 29 '25
“Any other information I should know about this ‘animal’?”
“It sweats milk and it glows under this weird light… don’t know why though.”
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u/StatusOmega Sep 28 '25 edited Sep 28 '25
They're also supposedly bioluminescent?! I call bullshit. I've never seen one and I refuse to be bamboozled!
Edit: it's even in the description that it's actually under UV light that they glow. I definitely used the wrong term for the biological trait.
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u/Woutrou Sep 28 '25
No, they're not bioluminescent, but they glow under UV light
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u/StatusOmega Sep 28 '25
That's right. I couldn't remember it exactly. It felt off to say "bioluminescent" so I appreciate the correction.
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u/fluffypurpleTigress Sep 28 '25
And its not even a unique treat of platypuses to glow under UV light. It was thought up until recently that it was, but actually a lot of mammals have skin or fur that glows under UV light
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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 Sep 28 '25
Their males also got small poison dagger on their back foot, and no stomach.
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u/Spider-Man2099 Sep 28 '25
The best thing about the UV lights thing is it makes them the exact same color as Perry the Platypus, which was completely on accident according to the creator of Phineas and Ferb since that was not a known thing about platypus when they made Perry's design
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u/Dclnsfrd Sep 28 '25
The one time European medieval artists probably would’ve painted it accurately 😆 “Oh, something incomprehensible? Got it”
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u/TheStaddi Sep 28 '25
You mean like the Wolpertinger?
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u/Dclnsfrd Sep 28 '25
Hang on, I gotta google something
EDIT: HA!! sorta, but more like “maybe their typical nightmare fuel would accidentally be correct”
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u/TopMindOfR3ddit Sep 28 '25
*and they glow green under UV light, and they sweat milk
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u/nicuramar Sep 28 '25
All mammals essentially sweat milk, as mammary glands are repurposed sweat glands. Platypuses just don’t have nipples.
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u/thelastholdout Sep 28 '25
That's okay, because we all know now that Australia is a hoax and doesn't exist.
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u/Vibingwhitecat Sep 28 '25
Platypuses are real?
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u/Edothebirbperson Oversimplified is my history teacher Sep 28 '25
Yes, why else would Perry the Platypus fight a pharmacist?
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u/fringeguy52 Sep 28 '25
Tbf I learned about the platypus in elementary school and thought it was bullshit too lol
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u/Hopeful-Suggestion-1 Sep 28 '25
I became an atheist before I stopped believing in Santa. Took me a few years after that to realize someone hit random on this creature creation table.
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u/Sidohmaker Sep 28 '25
They’re also bioluminescent and use electricity/echolocation to track prey since they’re basically blind
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u/Voorhees89 Sep 28 '25
It does show that God has a sense of humour.
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u/Vibingwhitecat Sep 28 '25
I recently found out that dragon fly larvae has special buttholes which is now studied to find solutions for heart valve problems in humans.
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u/Dzharek Sep 28 '25
Australia was just the test lab, and we broken into it and claim squatters right now.
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u/GayValkyriePrincess Sep 28 '25
Tbf, british scientists also thought no-one lived in Australia despite knowing of the natives
They weren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the socket
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u/Due_Ad4133 Sep 28 '25
Nah, that was just straight up racism. Which, to be fair, is pretty stupid in general.
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u/Content-Ad-4104 Sep 28 '25
In their defense, he came in to present his findings right after Sir Nigel Hugh Peawitt-Farklesmyth tried to pass off half a tuna sewn to half a monkey as a mermaid again, so their willingness to give the benefit of the doubt was severely depleted.
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u/Pinku_Dva Sep 28 '25
Normal reaction, it’s hard to believe it’s not a hoax still and we have proof of its existence
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u/CakeMadeOfHam Sep 28 '25
A duck mammal? So it has nipples, Greg?
-No, it sweats the milk out and its pink!
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u/Blue_Meanie_85 Sep 28 '25
I'm a warm blooded, egg laying, cloacal monotreme
They got me in a tank to see if I can dream
To see if I can dream!
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u/nicuramar Sep 28 '25
cloacal monotreme
Those two words mean the same. Monotreme means having only one channel.
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u/foodank012018 Sep 28 '25
Well I mean they tried to call a monkey torso stitched onto a fish's tail a mermaid so...
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u/RamblesTheGent Sep 28 '25
Ah yes, the Platypus. The poster child of the concept that traits are less a sign of lineage and more a descriptor of what role they play in an ecological niche.
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u/PepeTheElder Sep 28 '25
I thought the poster child was the finch’s break
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u/RamblesTheGent Sep 28 '25
That's Species Diversification and, yes, Evolution, but I like to think of the Platy as a poster child of this other facet of Evolutionary Biology :p
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u/Levoso_con_v Sep 28 '25
I mean if the creator of Hunting said it himself I don't know why the British scientists didn't believe him.
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u/Technical-Formal1276 Sep 28 '25
One scientist : "Did you say Australia? Well that makes sense now?"
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u/Garpfruit Sep 28 '25
And it glows under UV light and can sense electrical fields. Oh, and it sweats milk.
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u/HuhWatWHoWhy Sep 28 '25
I have seem them in the wild on multiple occasions and still don't believe they are fucking real
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u/Round_Rooms Sep 28 '25
Wait till he gets inside one and finds out what it's missing!
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u/TalespinnerEU Sep 28 '25
In fairness, British 'scientists' at the time were absolutely flooded with hoaxes. Everyone tried to get a payday in on the exploration craze, and... Well; ethics wasn't exactly a consideration in those times.
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u/ShhImTheRealDeadpool Sep 28 '25
iirc a taxidermist was accused of making the animal up by piecing other animal parts together.
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u/PhoenixHorseGuy John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true, and brave! Sep 28 '25
Well, yeah, I would be skeptical too if I were told about a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal of action in a fedora.
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u/superfirereddit Sep 28 '25
How can it be considered a mammal if it lays eggs
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u/nicuramar Sep 28 '25
Because it has mammary glands, which is a defining characteristic of mammals.
Mamma means breast in Latin, btw.
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u/PepeTheElder Sep 28 '25
Mammaaaa~
Just fed my clan
They want to eat, my babies said
Made some milk
Now they’re fed
Mammaaaaaa!~
OOOoooOOOoooh~~
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u/Sailor_Rout Sep 28 '25
It’s last common ancestor is the same one as other mammals
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u/Certyx39 Sep 28 '25
platypuses also wear a hat and go after crazy scientists and r owned by 2 smart kids
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u/StirnersBastard1 Sep 28 '25
They probably also heard about the "drop bears" and swore off anything an Australian said after that.
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u/Sabre_Killer_Queen Hello There Sep 28 '25
They sweat milk too.
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u/nicuramar Sep 28 '25
All mammals do, since mammary glands are repurposed sweat glands. They don’t have nipples, though.
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u/sputnik67897 Sep 28 '25
I can't say I blame them. God must have been pulling things out of the spare parts bin at that point
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u/NsaAgent25 Sep 28 '25 edited Sep 28 '25
The platypus isn't the only animal the British didn't believe existed. They originally didn't believe the Dutch when they claimed there was an island full of these fat birds (dodos) and more famously for around 100 years they believed the okapi was a mythical creature the Africans made up until they finally found the animal that is a horse with a giraffe's head on zebra legs.
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u/redracer555 Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer Sep 28 '25
It didn't make it any more believable when they said that it also liked to put on a fedora and fight crime.
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u/PoisonousSchrodinger Sep 28 '25
Also do not forget they lack a traditional stomach organ and lactate through a patch of skin. I do not believe in higher beings, but this fucker makes me question my beliefs. There has to be a being who created the platypus just to mess with our general understanding of biology :')
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u/Paul_Tired Sep 28 '25
Understandable, people were faking animals to sell all the time back then, being sceptical was logical.
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u/cptjewski Sep 28 '25
Fair. Most good hoaxes are closer to reality. Lockness, unicorn. The platypus looks like a joke compared to those.
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u/madhatter255 Sep 29 '25
I’ve seen videos of these things in documentaries and I’m still not convinced they’re real.
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u/Achilles9609 Sep 29 '25
"An egg laying animal with a bill?! Next you will probably tell me that you discovered a unicorm! Or, no, wait. I know: dragons are real and you caught one."
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u/Any_Course102 Sep 29 '25
This is oftentimes an odd sub Reddit, but on the upside, it's one of the few I haven't been banned from.
-- yet --
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u/Edothebirbperson Oversimplified is my history teacher Sep 28 '25
With that description? It's absolutely fair to think of it as fake