Off-Topic
It is one of the few venomous mammals, the male platypus having a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.
True, but...
I have been fortunate to watch platypus in the wild, but only on a handful of occasions, whilst fishing in some of the small streams in NE Tasmania. I suspect that very few, if any, other members on this site have had that experience.
They are also very timid so it is unlikely that the average person would ever get close enough to one to get hit by the spur.
I don't really think they should be grouped in with 'box jellys, spiders, snakes and scorpionfish'.
:)
http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/shorter/story.htm
Platypus
For a shy little animal, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) can cause a lot of grief. Tucked away on the back legs of mature males are a pair of short spurs each hooked-up to a venom gland that makes a viciously painful toxin.
Platypus spurrings of people are rare, but the select group who have survived the trauma (often fishermen trying to free irate monotremes from their nets) report pain strong enough to induce vomiting which can persist for days, weeks or even months. The pain is resistant to morphine and other pain-killing drugs and anaesthesia of the main nerve from the spur site is often the only way to relieve the patient's suffering.
A witness to one of the first recorded platypus spurrings made these observations:
"... the pain was intense and almost paralysing. But for the administration of small doses of brandy, he would have fainted on the spot: as it was, it was half and hour before he could stand without support: by that time the arm was swollen to the shoulder, and quite useless, and the pain in the hand very severe." - W.W. Spicer (1876)
Professor Philip Kuchel, from Sydney University, says there are at least 25 components in the platypus venom, including a protein that lowers blood pressure causing shock, digestive enzymes called hyaluronidases and peptidases that dissolve body tissue helping the poison to spread, and a protein that increases blood-flow to the spur site causing severe swelling. The slight acidity of the venom adds further sting.
But the special ingredient in platypus venom that accounts for its outstanding pain-inducing qualities is thought to act directly on nerve cells that register pain, called nocioceptors. Greg de Plater, who discovered the compound recently at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra, says it works a bit like capsacin (the active ingredient in chillies that makes them taste hot) by stimulating electrical activity in the pain cells.
Why this placid animal swims around with such a nasty toxin hidden in its back legs is still something of a mystery - the platypus doesn't use its spurs to catch or kill prey as far as anyone can tell. Cliff Gallagher, an emeritus professor studying the platypus at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, says the toxin is most often used in deadly skirmishes between rival males to stake out territory and also as an "excruciatingly painful" defence mechanism.
Study on the toxin is continuing and, ultimately, Greg de Plater hopes an understanding of how the different components of the platypus venom work could lead to new treatments for chronic pain sufferers.
Platypus
Platypus spurrings of people are rare, but the select group who have survived the trauma (often fishermen trying to free irate monotremes from their nets) report pain strong enough to induce vomiting which can persist for days, weeks or even months. The pain is resistant to morphine and other pain-killing drugs and anaesthesia of the main nerve from the spur site is often the only way to relieve the patient's suffering.
A witness to one of the first recorded platypus spurrings made these observations:
"... the pain was intense and almost paralysing. But for the administration of small doses of brandy, he would have fainted on the spot: as it was, it was half and hour before he could stand without support: by that time the arm was swollen to the shoulder, and quite useless, and the pain in the hand very severe." - W.W. Spicer (1876)
Professor Philip Kuchel, from Sydney University, says there are at least 25 components in the platypus venom, including a protein that lowers blood pressure causing shock, digestive enzymes called hyaluronidases and peptidases that dissolve body tissue helping the poison to spread, and a protein that increases blood-flow to the spur site causing severe swelling. The slight acidity of the venom adds further sting.
But the special ingredient in platypus venom that accounts for its outstanding pain-inducing qualities is thought to act directly on nerve cells that register pain, called nocioceptors. Greg de Plater, who discovered the compound recently at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra, says it works a bit like capsacin (the active ingredient in chillies that makes them taste hot) by stimulating electrical activity in the pain cells.
Why this placid animal swims around with such a nasty toxin hidden in its back legs is still something of a mystery - the platypus doesn't use its spurs to catch or kill prey as far as anyone can tell. Cliff Gallagher, an emeritus professor studying the platypus at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, says the toxin is most often used in deadly skirmishes between rival males to stake out territory and also as an "excruciatingly painful" defence mechanism.
Study on the toxin is continuing and, ultimately, Greg de Plater hopes an understanding of how the different components of the platypus venom work could lead to new treatments for chronic pain sufferers.
I can avoid all the shit that can kill you here, I like rivers and streams and we don't have a whole lot in this area that can do you in other than Copperhead snakes. You can smell those LONG before you come up on it. If you're in the US and you're NOT in a cucumber field and you smell cucumbers, you need to mind your feet because you're in a heap of trouble.
Why do they smell like cucumbers?
If you're nowhere near a fridge and you smell ozone (the weird air smell in a fridge that isn't rotting food)you're about to be hit by lightning.
Oh, and that is fact. My husband and I are interested in weather. We used to be storm chasing buddies (obviously spent way too much time together), he's a meteorologist.
A year ago I was picking my daughter up from after school care. Storms had been brewing and were moving closer to the school but hadn't yet enclosed the school. The whole school is on a fairly steep hill and the ASC is on a flat clearing near the top, with the summit being 50m or so of thick bush with tall gum trees and massive granite boulders up above. I had collected the kid, we were standing on the covered verandah and I was deciding whether it was worth the bolt to the car or not when that smell wafted around us. Within a fraction of a second there was a sizzle and a pop as lightning hit something on the hill above us, within 30 metres of where we stood and then the loudest explosion of air as thunder rumbled around. I couldn't even hear myself scream F**K! Good thing, coz the kid couldn't either ;) we bolted back inside the door, my daughter lost it and we waited a few minutes before running to the car. We found out later that the lightning had knocked out the school's phone system.
So yes, learn the smell of ozone and don't ever be the tallest thing outside in a thunderstorm. Do not shelter under trees or things made of metal. You are safe in your car because the tyres insulate you though if your car is struck you may lose your electrics.
A year ago I was picking my daughter up from after school care. Storms had been brewing and were moving closer to the school but hadn't yet enclosed the school. The whole school is on a fairly steep hill and the ASC is on a flat clearing near the top, with the summit being 50m or so of thick bush with tall gum trees and massive granite boulders up above. I had collected the kid, we were standing on the covered verandah and I was deciding whether it was worth the bolt to the car or not when that smell wafted around us. Within a fraction of a second there was a sizzle and a pop as lightning hit something on the hill above us, within 30 metres of where we stood and then the loudest explosion of air as thunder rumbled around. I couldn't even hear myself scream F**K! Good thing, coz the kid couldn't either ;) we bolted back inside the door, my daughter lost it and we waited a few minutes before running to the car. We found out later that the lightning had knocked out the school's phone system.
So yes, learn the smell of ozone and don't ever be the tallest thing outside in a thunderstorm. Do not shelter under trees or things made of metal. You are safe in your car because the tyres insulate you though if your car is struck you may lose your electrics.
They secrete a pheromone that smells like cucumbers to humans. Copperheads are EXTREMELY aggressive snakes. A few years ago M had a dog come in that was bitten and they found a den of the damn things near where the dog would sleep outside.
We have quite wicked storms here as well. The neighbor behind us has had her trees hit a few times, then they die and when the ice builds up the tops snap off and come crashing down. 10 metres of tree top coming down is an impressive sight.
Hello Rob 
Just to make you appreciate where you live, google: Cone Shells, Blue Ring Octopus, Mouse Spiders, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Death Adders, Dingos and Tony Abbott
Of them all, the last is the most lethal to all life forms but especially to refugees, the elderly, the disadvantaged, the disabled and anyone who ISN'T Gina Rinehart....
Actually that's another poisonous species you can look up too.....
Just to make you appreciate where you live, google: Cone Shells, Blue Ring Octopus, Mouse Spiders, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Death Adders, Dingos and Tony Abbott
Of them all, the last is the most lethal to all life forms but especially to refugees, the elderly, the disadvantaged, the disabled and anyone who ISN'T Gina Rinehart....
Actually that's another poisonous species you can look up too.....
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