Seeing is believing
Look: Missing 19th century platypus and echidna specimens discovered in museum storage
150 years ago, these mammal specimens ignited a fierce evolutionary debate. A British museum just re-discovered them.
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No animal caused an academic kerfuffle among 19th-century European scientists quite like the platypus.
Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images News/Getty Images
British colonists living in New South Wales, Australia, sent specimens of the creature back to their homeland.
It looked like a hodgepodge of conflicting features to European naturalists; its duck-like beak, beaver-like tail, webbed feet, and fur puzzled them. Some even thought it was fake.
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