Platypus

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Preliminary Biology – Research Task 1) Assess the impact of three particular technological advances on the understanding of the platypus. Technology is a major tool that has been used over the last century to understand organisms better, specifically the platypus. The Platypus was first encountered by Europeans in 1798, where they thought somebody had sewn a duck’s beak onto a beaver-like animal. Since then, our understanding of the Platypus has increased and the following three technological advances have shown how and why it has increased. a) Electron Microscopy: The electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to create an image of the specimen. Due to the higher power and magnifications, it allows us…show more content…
Radio-telemetry has been used to investigate the platypus biology. Lyn Beard and Gordon Grigg from the University of Queensland conducted an experiment on the Platypus in the 1990s after they had performed radio telemetry on echidnas. They used the same techniques to a population of platypus in the Thredbo River, where they discovered that even in the coldest rivers, the platypus did not hibernate. However telemetry did reveal that in a couple of days, the behaviour of the platypus had changed as the burrow was shared by males which was previously unknown. Through the use of telemetry, it advanced the knowledge of the platypus’s behaviours and the…show more content…
The Procoptodon fossils found in South Australia shows that Australia used to have megafauna. The extinctions of the Procoptodons contribute to our knowledge on the evolution of species as we can use technology to see the ultimate cause of the extinction. The arrival of humans around 48,000 years ago, the increased aridity around 18,000 years ago and the change in climate around 15,000 years ago are some of the hypothesis surrounding the extinctions, which shows us the change in the environment over the time. Aboriginal people still recount stories of a large, aggressive kangaroo that would attack people. The fossil Procoptodon were easily hunted due to their large size, and over time via natural selection, the species have developed smaller and more agile in the Kangaroo

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