that the males in this species actually have a poison spine located on the back hind legs.
Got me thinking... Are there any other poisonous Mammals?
There are!
First let us examine the Platypus.
These creatures are rather amazing- and quite possibly the weirdest animals we have right now on the planet!
They are a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal, that has the bill of a duck, the tail of a beaver, and otter-like webbed feet.
as Wikipedia notes:
Monotremes (see also echidna for the other species) are the only mammals known to have a sense of electroreception: they locate their prey in part by detecting electric fields generated by muscular contractions. The Platypus' electroreception is the most sensitive of any monotreme.
They are carnivorous, eating only insects and small creatures in their habitiat.
These critters hatch from eggs, and then raise their babies on milk- Though they lack nipples! The milk forms from glands on their bellies producing small pools of milk on their stomachs.
The female Platypus has two overies- but only one of the two is funtional.
The male Platypus has poisonous spines on it's hind legs. (not deadly, but painful)
So what else in the Mammal kingdom is poisonous?
These little fellas deliver a painful *not deadly* poison bite:
(I realize coming from me- and my family's history with shrew jokes, this might seem like I am shitting you... but I am not!)
Eurasian water shrew:
Northern Short-tailed Shrew:
Southern Short-tailed Shrew & Elliot's Short-tailed Shrew
*which look too much like the Northern Short-tailed Shrew for me to delineate a photo...*
and last but not least!
The rare, the long snooted...
Solenodon!
There has been theory that poisonous mammals used to be more common and had more of an evolutionary need... But these little ones are the last of their kind.
Bite bite bite bite!
*and in the case of Platypus... kick kick kick!)
