Crocaducks? Why isn't evolution more random?

[macdoc]

The platypus has a tail and fur similar to a beaver, a bill and webbed feet like a duck, it produces venom like an insect, lays eggs like a chicken, but nurses its young with milk! A total hodgepodge of different species. What exactly is this strange thing called a platypus and where did it come from? Another planet, maybe? Is it a sophisticated hoax put together by practical jokers

That do???

[klr]

It's the chromosomes. We do not have the same number as chimpanzees. Horses and mules do not either. Look it up in wiipedia. The offspring are nfertile due to this mismatch.

The two extant species of Beaver (North American and Eurasian) also have different numbers of chromosomes.

Not so sure about the Big Cats, who are still "sort" of cross-fertile in certain situations. Speciation can sometimes take a while to complee.

[Brian Peacock]

I'm not a expert here so I'll throw this question in the ring to see what those who are make of it? Seems species only mate along the lines of near relatives or closely related species? Why? Surely it would be a advantage for even distant species with common genes to produce offspring even if few survived? or any?

There is no fitness advantage to mating with a species that is genetically incompatible. You is what you am: a cow don't make ham.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm not a expert here so I'll throw this question in the ring to see what those who are make of it? Seems species only mate along the lines of near relatives or closely related species? Why? Surely it would be a advantage for even distant species with common genes to produce offspring even if few survived? or any?

There is no fitness advantage to mating with a species that is genetically incompatible. You is what you am: a cow don't make ham.

What? You've never heard of "sheeple"?

[Brian Peacock]

What you get up to in your own woodshed is your business.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What you get up to in your own woodshed is your business.

Hey, do I sound Welch to you?

[Brian Peacock]

Be a lamb and stop bleating.










I'll get me coat.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Be a lamb and stop bleating.










I'll get me coat.

Bleat it, just bleat it.
No one has to be
Sheep feeted.
Just bleat it...

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

"Quackodile"

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Quackodile"

Q. rex?

[macdoc]

you rang



any more duck jokes and your lunch.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

you rang



any more duck jokes and your lunch.

You quack me up.

[macdoc]

now ya dunnit..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you feel a tickle in your throat it's my butt.

[mistermack]

Apart from the problem of recombining genetic material that doesn't match, you would have the problem that the mother's immune system would be triggered by the strange fetus.

In any case, the concept of the selfish gene means that experiments like this would lead to so many failures, that the genes that enabled this kind of thing would disappear from the gene pool super-quick. Each gene "strives" to reproduce itself, to the best of it's ability, and duck-fucking crocodile genes would simply lose out to crocodile-fucking crocodile genes.