Jack Ashby
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
But what they've done is they've evolved from animals with teeth.
And in fact, platypuses are hatched.
grow tiny little teeth and then reabsorb them.
So they definitely evolve from animals with teeth.
But what they've done is, they're adults, as they don't have teeth, they've evolved these horny ridges.
They look like a kind of comb on its side.
And they're made of horns, they're made of keratin, so the same as our fingernails and our hair.
And these are constantly regrowing ridges.
So they're really tough.
They can grind up...
crayfish and mollusks and whatever else they might eat and just constantly regrow.
So it's a fantastic evolutionary adaptation.
Yeah.
Wow.
And they're really bumpy.
They look like a comb.
Well, if this is such a good thing, why don't we have these things?
That's a great question.
We don't know.
We don't know.