Platypus" ... story of a biological riddle that confounded scientists for nearly ninety years, challenging theories of creationism, evolution, and the classification of species along the way."--Jacket |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 19 | |
3 Marshalling the animals | 31 |
4 The wrangling scientists | 48 |
5 The land of contrarieties | 61 |
6 The first hard look | 74 |
7 The paper war | 89 |
8 Darwins platypus | 102 |
12 The new men | 158 |
13 The platypus man | 167 |
14 The platypus goes to war | 180 |
15 The animal of all time | 186 |
Glossary | 206 |
A word on sources | 209 |
Illustrations | 215 |
Index | 219 |
Other editions - View all
Platypus: The Extraordinary Story of How a Curious Creature Baffled the World Ann Moyal Limited preview - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
Aborigines anatinus anatomy animal animal's Australian Banks Beagle beak bill birds birth botanical botanist Britain British Buffon Burnett River Burrell burrow Caldwell Caldwell’s century collections colonial comparative anatomists creature Cuvier Darwin discovery dissections duck early echidna embryo Everard Home evolution extinct fauna female platypus Ferdinand Bauer fish Fleay fossil François Péron French genera Geoffroy St-Hilaire geological George Bennett Gould hatched Healesville Healesville Sanctuary Home Huxley illustrations Kangaroo later lay eggs Lesueur Library of Australia Linnean living male mammalian mammals mammary glands marsupials Meckel Monotremata monotremes National Library natural history natural selection naturalist nipples observations organic Ornithorhynchus oviparous ovoviviparous Owen’s paper Paris Péron platypus platypus and echidna pouch Prototheria published quadrupeds reproduction reptiles Richard Owen river Royal Society scientific scientists Society of London South Wales species specimens suckling Sydney Tasmania taxonomic theory uterus vertebrates viviparous voyage wrote young Zoological Society zoologist
Popular passages
Page 69 - KANGAROO! kangaroo! Thou spirit of Australia, That redeems from utter failure, From perfect desolation, And warrants the creation Of this fifth part of the earth...
Page 68 - ... three or four young kangaroos looking out of its false uterus, to see what is passing. Then comes a quadruped as big as a large cat, with the eyes, colour, and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-feet of a duck, puzzling Dr. Shaw, and rendering the latter half of his life miserable, from his utter inability to determine whether it was a bird or a beast.
Page 45 - Their manner of generation or procreation is exceedingly strange and highly worth observing. Below the belly the female carries a pouch, into which you may put your hand; inside this pouch are her nipples, and we have found that the young ones grow up in this pouch with the nipples in their mouths.
Page 7 - Of all the mammalia yet known, it seems the most extraordinary in its conformation ; exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a duck, engrafted on the head of a quadruped.
Page 106 - Now what would the Disbeliever say to this? Would any two workmen ever hit on so beautiful, so simple, & yet so artificial a contrivance? It cannot be thought so. The one hand has surely worked throughout the universe. A Geologist perhaps would suggest that the periods of Creation have been distinct & remote the one from the other; that the Creator rested in his labor.54 January 20th.
Page 61 - Bay ; and, in this remote part of the earth, Nature (having made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, elms, and all regular and useful productions for the rest of the world,) seems determined to have a bit of play, and to amuse herself as she pleases. Accordingly, she makes cherries with the stone on the outside ; and a monstrous animal, as tall as a grenadier, with the head of a rabbit, a tail as big as a bed-post, hopping along at the rate of five hops to a mile, with three or four young kangaroos...
Page 123 - There is a land in distant seas Full of all contrarieties, There beasts have mallards' bills and legs, Have spurs like cocks, like hens lay eggs. There parrots walk upon the ground, And grass upon the trees is found; On other trees — another wonder — Leaves without upper side or under. There pears you'll scarce with hatchet cut; Stones are outside the cherries put; Swans are not...
Page 70 - Better-proportion'd animal, More graceful or ethereal, Was never follow'd by the hound, With fifty steps to thy one bound. Thou canst not be amended : no ; Be as thou art ; thou best art so. When sooty swans are once more rare, And duck-moles * the museum's care, Be still the glory of this land, Happiest work of finest hand 1 IV.— KEATS' "LAMIA" (1820) LAMIA, ISABELLA, THE EVE OF SAINT AGNES, AND OTHER POEMS By JOHN KEATS.
Page 113 - This wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living, will, I do not doubt, hereafter throw more light on the appearance of organic beings on our earth and their disappearance from it than any other class of facts.
Page 227 - I had been lying on a sunny bank & was reflecting on the strange character of the animals of this country as compared to the rest of the World. An unbeliever in everything beyond his own reason might exclaim, 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work ; their object, however, has been the same & certainly the end in each case is complete.
References to this book
Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin: Out of the Natural Order Jane Goodall No preview available - 2002 |