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

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> 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>