The Platypus Can Poison You 80 Different Ways. The platypus lays eggs, but it also lactates and has hair like mammals, though it has no nipples. It has ten sex chromosomes, which resemble those of birds, but uses genes from mammals and reptiles to fertilize and lay its eggs, which are produced from only one of two ovaries (the left one). It also has fewer smell receptors than other mammals, but this diminished olfaction isn’t that big of a deal, because it hunts by detecting its prey’s electric current.





The mantis shrimp. It changes color, sees thousands of times more color than humans, can see a form of light that electrophysicists theorized only in the 90s, and at 20cm has the striking power of a rifle bullet. it also creates luminous cavitation pulses that it uses to stun and kill pretty much anything that irritates it. best of all, it uses 'siege defecation' to basically shit enemies out of their burrows and steal them.





The cuttlefish is pretty wild. It has a donut shaped brain and three hearts pumping blue blood. Its pupils are not the typical circle but instead are shaped like a W [to see polarization]*. It has skin that's essentially a high resolution illuminated display that can also change texture. It can appear to be coral by not only changing to the same color and pattern as the coral but also by becoming spiky. When a cuttlefish is hunting, it mesmerizes its prey with trippy light shows before snatching them from a distance with its mouth tentacles. It's an invertebrate (specifically a mollusk), but it has proto-fins and is insanely smart (it has one of the largest brain-body size ratios of invertebrates).

 : :dumlak:

Octopuses are thought to be one of the most intelligent invertebrates and can change the color and texture of their skin to blend in with rocks, algae, or coral to avoid predators. But until now, an octopus with the ability to actually assume the appearance of another animal had never been observed.

"Having studied many octopus species in the wild, I am never surprised by the color and shape change capacities of these animals," said Mark Norman of the Melbourne Museum in Australia. "However, this animal stood out as it was the only one we've encountered that goes beyond camouflage to take on the guise of dangerous animals."

Norman and fellow researchers Julian Finn of the University of Tasmania in Australia and Tom Tregenza of the University of Leeds in England describe the octopus mimic in the September 7 issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

"This," Tregenza said, "is a rather dramatic animal."

Talented Impersonator

Mimicry is a fairly common survival strategy in nature. Certain flies, for example, assume the black and yellow stripes of bees as a warning to potential predators. But the adaptable octopus is the first known species that can assume multiple guises.

Mimic Octopus

Mean.