Monotremes of the Harvard Museum of Natural History
June 11, 2012
Picture-of-the-day post: a couple of days ago I had the chance to spend an hour in a very brief visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Needless to say, that was a pathetically inadequate amount of time to look at even one of the public galleries properly. But here is one photo I took — skeletons of both extant monotremes, the platypus and the echidna:
Click through for full resolution.
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June 11, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Both? *Both*? And what about the two echidnas that are not Tachyglossus? ;)
June 11, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Edit: Damn, three even! Remembered attenboroughi but forgot bartoni.
June 11, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Surprisingly similar, and with very “basal cynodont”-y postcrania. (The crania, OTOH….)
June 11, 2012 at 2:22 pm
SPLITTER!
:p
June 12, 2012 at 4:08 am
Dave beat me to it. Was going to say that’s like referring to Diplodocus and Apatosaurus as “the brontosaurus”!
May it never catch on.
June 12, 2012 at 2:25 pm
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June 13, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Echidnas are just spiny, short-tailed, narrow-beaked terrestrial platypuses (the ‘platypus’ morphotype existed in the Cretaceous, but genetic divergence and echidna fossils are much younger). But of course you knew that.
June 14, 2012 at 8:47 pm
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June 17, 2012 at 2:23 pm
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