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Re: Platypuses may be older than we think...



http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12838-exhibitionist-spiny-anteater-reveals-bizarre-penis.html

Fantastic!

But I really wish people (in the video, too!) would stop talking about "reptiles". The bifurcated thingie is unique to squamates (or lepidosaurs?) and not found in crocodiles or turtles (or of course birds). It is clearly not the plesiomorphic condition for sauropsids or amniotes.

<rant>
BTW, this is not the only instance of such a completely invalid generalization. Remember how in "reptiles" the jaw joint is formed by the quadrate in the upper and the articular in the lower jaw? I always thought it was highly unusual that in the near-mammal *Probainognathus* the surangular participated in the joint (on the lower-jaw side), and this condition has been portrayed as leading to participation of the dentary in the jaw joint. Nonsense. The surangular making up the medial 1/3 of the joint surface is the normal condition throughout limbed vertebrates at least, and the lepidosaurs are almost unique in having lost that.
</rant>