Sunday, October 24, 2004

This is Crazy - Platypuses !!

"The weird and wonderful duck-billed platypus just got even more weird and more wonderful.
Platypuses are famous for laying eggs yet producing milk, having a bird-like bill and a skeleton with reptilian features. Now it turns out that the mammal has an equally eye-catching way of deciding its sex, according to a study by Frank Grützner and Jenny Graves at the Australian National University in Canberra, and colleagues.
In most mammals, including humans, sex is decided by the X and Y chromosomes: two Xs create a female, while XY creates a male. In birds, the system is similar: ZW makes for a female, while ZZ makes for a male.
But in platypuses, XXXXXXXXXX creates a female, while XYXYXYXYXY creates a male. In other words, rather than a single chromosome pair, platypuses have ten-chromosome chains that determine their sex. "

Eh ??? Then the odds are that they are more advanced then the human species !!!!!

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