Geek Trivia: Which Of These Animals Is, Unlike Nearly Every Other Mammal On Earth, Mite Free?

Reply: Platypus

Mites are microscopic arthropods which are among the many most numerous and profitable of all of the invertebrate teams. They’re so profitable that for the overwhelming majority of us, creatures massive and small, mites are only a reality of life. When you’re studying this, there are mites in your eyelashes, mites in your pores and skin, mites on close by textiles like rugs and pillows, mites in your pets, mites on the birds perched outdoors your window, and mites on the bugs buzzing about your yard (there’s even a selected mite that assaults solely honey bees).

Actually, if one thing crawls, walks, slithers, flies, swims, or simply lazes about in place for all of its life, there’s a minimum of a mite or two that makes use of it as a number. There's, nevertheless, a curious exception to this rule within the mammal kingdom. Of all of the mammals ever checked for mites, the one ones that apparently haven't any mite species colonizing their our bodies are the already-curious-enough creatures within the Ornithorhynchidae and Tachyglossidae households (which are populated, respectively, by the platypus and its echidna family members like spiny anteaters).

For causes which are unclear, mites merely have little interest in the oddly formed semiaquatic egg-laying mammal and its monotreme cousins present in Australia and New Guinea. Maybe they, just like the early European scientists that got here throughout them, have been off-put by the unusual and inexplicable mishmash of physique elements and/or organic features present in these odd mammals.

Picture courtesy of Klaus.



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