The different chemicals in the venom have a range of effects from lowering blood pressure to causing pain and increasing blood flow around the wound. This venom appears to be related to that of several species that are not part of the platypus's evolutionary lineage, such as certain fish, reptiles, insectivores, and spiders, sea anemones, and starfish. This is the only known such example in mammalian systems. A unique feature of the venom is the presence of a D-amino acid. ![]() This appears to be an example of convergent evolution of venom genes from existing immune system genes ( defensins). The OvDLPs are related to, though distinct from, those involved in reptilian venom production. Those peptides that have been sequenced and identified fall into three categories: defensin-like peptides (OvDLPs), C-type natriuretic peptides (OvCNPs), and nerve growth factor (OvNGF). The crural gland produces a venom secretion containing at least nineteen peptides and some non-nitrogenous components. ![]() The spur normally lies flat against the limb but is raised when required. The spur is attached to a small bone that allows articulation the spur can move at a right angle to the limb allowing a greater range of attack than a fixed spur would allow. Female platypuses, in common with echidnas, have rudimentary spur buds that do not develop (dropping off before the end of their first year) and lack functional crural glands. The venom is produced in the crural glands of the male, which are kidney-shaped alveolar glands located in the upper thigh, and delivered through a spur, or calcar, on each hind limb. Rather than being a unique outlier, the platypus is the last demonstration of what was once a common mammalian characteristic, and it can be used as a model for non- therian mammals and their venom delivery and properties. Many archaic mammal groups possess similar tarsal spurs, so it is thought that, rather than having developed this characteristic uniquely, the platypus simply inherited this characteristic from its antecedents. While the venom's effects are described as extremely painful, it is not lethal to humans. The venom is made in venom glands that are connected to hollow spurs on their hind legs it is primarily made during the mating season. The platypus is one of the few living mammals to produce venom. As with so many of its traits, however, platypus poison has been consistently described as a redundant remnant, rather than an emergent feature indicating evolutionary advance.The venom-delivering spur is found only on the male's hind limbs. Indeed, ongoing uncertainty regarding the biological purpose of the male's spur has ostensibly posed a directional puzzle. As with its reproductive reliance upon eggs, possession of an endogenous poison suggested significant reptilian affinities, yet the platypus has rarely been classed as an advanced reptile. In Australia, however, sporadic cases of 'spiking' led to consistent homologies being remarked between the platypus crural system and the venom glands of snakes. For a creature regularly depicted as a biological outlier, the systematic and evolutionary implications of platypus poison have remained largely overlooked. ![]() Once the defining characteristic of both the platypus and echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), by 1830 this sexed spur had been largely dismissed as inactive and irrelevant. This article pursues a different taxonomie trajectory, concentrating on a specifically male anatomical development: the crural spur and venom gland on the hind legs. ![]() Despite its apparent admixture of avian, reptilian and mammalian characters, the platypus was soon placed as a rudimentary mammal – primitive, naïve and harmless. Investigations into platypus reproduction and lactation have focused attention largely upon females of the species. Nevertheless, since 1797, naturalists and biologists have pursued two recurring obsessions. An unprecedented mélange of anatomical features and physiological functions, it long remained a systematic quandary. For over two centuries, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) has been constructed and categorized in multiple ways.
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