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Kentucky Platypus?

A

Anonymous

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i recently had an opportunity to view a rather unique, but very unfortunate creature. it all began when saturday morning my mom told me that she had seen something that looked like a platypus dead beside the road. being a biology major i quickly dismissed the thought of such a creature in the applachian mountains, let alone kentucky. anyway, my curiosity got the best of me so i grabbed a camera, and picked up my friend oaksey, and we went to check it out. when i found the peculiar creature it had been decapitated, (my mom swears to seeing its bill) which made identifying it that much harder, as the indigenous beaver bears a striking resemblance to a platypus, but the animal appeared like no beaver i had seen, its fur ended at its wrists and ankles revealing leathery webbed claws, and its tail was about an inch or so thick, and leathery, not scaly as with the typical beaver. it was a fair day and the creature had not been in the sun long, as it was not present when mom left for the market but was there when she returned, a time window of perhaps an hour, and rigor mortis was not present when i examined the creature. i thought this would rule out bloating of the flesh and hair loss on the paws. any help would be appreciated, and if you're patient i can have pics (rather gruesome) by this weekend.(theyre being developed now)
 
sounds great, get those pics uploaded and we can have a look and see if we can slove this riddle. If it is a platypus you should be careful as they have thorn like poisonous claws at the back of each hind leg that has enough venom to kill a grown man so dont go feelng around it too much that is if you still have its carcass, that would also be a good way to tell if it is a platypus, im not an expert on this but if you let me know if you have still got the body of this creature ill do some research into finding out how you could go about looking for this claw.
If it is a platypus then it could possibly be an introduced platypus that has either has escaped and killed or someone threw it out their car or something or i guess it could be an unknown species never discovered before in the US, i highly doubt that its native to the US to be honest as there are no other marsupials in the US but you never know, there are supposidly kangaroos been spotted in Texas or some other place, perhaps they have eluded us and now finally they are coming out the closet.
Nice work mr_skelator :)
 
Was it male or female?

Only the males have the posion gland, Tang-M.

And no human has ever been killed by a platypus.
 
Yes, like you Ogopogo i just read that. I see you edited your post after you originally posted it to mention my mistake, how unlike you. Im not an expert in everything and anything and neither do i claim to be so i do tend to make mistakes now and again. i.e posting something that was meant for the cryptozoology section in the conspiracy section, oh wait you just done that didnt you? now its deleted lol

The part about the human being killed with the poison, well im just going along with what i was told by an australian when i was visiting Perth. Just cos noone has been killed doesnt mean you cant be killed. Tell you what Ogo lets test it out on you shall we? im sure many others would like to see that.
 
Ogopogo said:
In fact, here's a source that confirms my statements that you don't care about. Too bad you were wrong on two points

who says i dont care about the statements? if they are the truth then they are the truth, like i said above in my first unedited post im not an expert in platypus's.
Now someone has came here with a serious topic which will interest a lot of people nodoubt and i dont think its right if its turned into a flame pit or an argument on whos right and whos wrong about petty facts. I would think your comments would be justified if i was debating the fact that my views where right and yours where wrong but im not.
This is the last i have to say on this and i would apreciate it if you never tried to take things further.
 
You are right, and as a show of faith, I will not comment on the 10+ grammatical errors you have made in your last post.

Carry on.
 
Ogopogo said:
You are right, and as a show of faith, I will not comment on the 10+ grammatical errors you have made in your last post.

Carry on.

Let him who is without typos cast the first stone...


Pictures please, of the animal, if exant :)

8-)
 
I'm not a biology expert so probably couldn't be of much help-but I'd love to see the pictures purely out of interest! It could be a platypus that has possibly escaped from someones private collection. Just a thought!
 
This isn't really my subject so forgive me for sticking my beak in, but aren't opossums marsupials? Or are they from South America?
There was one on the Simpsons once (see what in-depth research I do):p
 
beakboo is right, we do have opossums here, (we call them 'possums) but they are the only indigenous marsupial i can think of. as for the carcass, i didnt hold onto it, but after you asked i had friend drive out and look for the thing, but it was gone,presumably due to the road crew. ill try to have some pics up friday evening, im away at school right now bugging my biology professors about this
 
Xanatic said:
You didn't keep the carcass?


"Mom, can I put this hunk of dead road kill without a head in the freezer?"

Even if you are a biology major somethings just 'aint gunna happen......

:D
 
Then cut off the meat, boil the bones and keep those. You don't let a thing like this slip between your fingers.
 
after class ill drive out there and look, if anything is to be salvaged ill bring it back
 
Let me play the anti-Art Bell here for a moment and ask some questions:

If the pictures ever do appear, will they be vague, blurry, and just tantalizing enough to encourage discussion?

Does the fact that the head is missing hurt the cryptozoology efforts? Well, it's the one aspect of its nature that would prove it conclusively, wouldn't it? How very convenient. How did it lose its head? Wildlife scavengers usually eat the body and take the head last.

Even if the pictures were taken, will the bones or body be found? Doubt it.

If the body is found, does the carcass have the poison spurs a male body would have? If not, does the carcass have the egg-laying mechanism a female would have?

Did the photographer find some roadkill and mutilate it for our pleasure and curiosity?

Did the photographer find a live animal and kill it and mutilate it for our pleasure and curiosity?

Enquiring minds want to know.
 
i did some scavenging at the site the carcass was photographed at, and found the remains...thats the good news. the bad news is that very close to the body i found the head/skull (only about half of it was still there) and an undeniably rodent jawbone, leading to the cocnlusion that the creature was a terribly mutilated beaver. im sorry i posted about this before i was sure, and im sorry i got some people excited about a piece of roadkill.
on that note im gonna go hide under a rock
 
Nothing to be ashamed of old thing... Professionals get caught out like that all the time. A piece of investigation, it was pretty good

8¬)
 
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