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Great article. Australia has the best animals. Even a mammal with an extremely painful venomous sting (the platypus), a pain that's not relieved by morphine. A

Great article. Australia has the best animals. Even a mammal with an extremely painful venomous sting (the platypus), a pain that's not relieved by morphine. And the Tasmanian Devil, one of the nastiest looking little creatures on 4 legs I've ever seen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
Nasty? No! They're adorable. I advocate for their domestication to anyone who'll listen. They're known to be very tame and friendly with in a short duration of repeated human closeness. Sure, an adult Devil could bite your hand off, but so can a dog, and Devils tend to prefer already dead things.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  are you talking about domesticating a Tasmanian Devil or a Platypus?
  - mc32 4y ago
    It seems clear they’re advocating for ‘devils.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  OK, well, each to his own. Everything in Oz can kill you anyway :) My "contact" was limited to watching one run around and around his cage at some zoo or animal preserve. He certainly looked plenty pissed off.
  - yarg 4y ago
    > run around and around his cage > He certainly looked plenty pissed off. Wouldn't you?
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      All of the animals could reasonably be pissed off, but some are resigned to their fate.
- yarg 4y ago
  Poor little fighty bastards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease. Human efforts at eradication left them with such low genetic diversity that contagious cancer became a thing. https://www.aussieark.org.au/tasmanian-devil/ https://www.aussieark.org.au/tasmanian-devil/
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    Yep, that's the primary driver for my advocating their domestication.
- sohkamyung 4y ago
  Devils are apparently more bark than bite [1] > Once deposited into a hessian sack for processing, devils tend to sit very still and let you do anything with them, including opening their mouth to check for devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) – all while wide awake and not anaesthetised! Every single person who has witnessed this incredibly calm, still behaviour from wild devils has been astounded at how easy they are to handle, how relaxed they appear lying on the biologists’ lap, and how biologists still have all their fingers after opening the devil’s mouth wide like a dentist! [1] https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/tasmanian-devil-australian-mammal/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/tasmanian-devil-australian...
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    Yeah, I recently listened to a researcher on one podcast or another who was saying this same thing. I'm willing to bet all adult mammals will exhibit similar behaviour in the right circumstances for them, they had to have been capable of being passive and calm in order for their mothers not to kill them.
- onethought 4y ago
  This parody right? Devils are know to bite their own family’s faces off. Even people trying to conserve their population dislike handling them directly. They are horrible critters … they don’t seem to serve a purpose in the wider ecosystem other than nastiness…
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    No parody, they're typically ultra calm when they're being held, and generally love play. https://youtu.be/aw87M8MVGBM https://youtu.be/aw87M8MVGBM https://youtu.be/wEK72aqu4Ek https://youtu.be/wEK72aqu4Ek
mostlystatic 4y ago
I wonder how real the "not relieved by morphine is", or what that means exactly. Looked into this a while back and only found this source [1]: > Intravenous access was obtained and 15 mg of morphine was given slowly. Over the next five minutes very little pain relief occurred. > [...] > A further 7.5 mg of morphine was given intravenously 15 minutes after the first dose, but again this produced little relief. Over the ensuing 15 minutes a further 7.5 mg of morphine was injected intravenously, which eventually reduced the pain to a tolerable level. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1992.tb141302.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.5694/j.1326-5377....
- rmccue 4y ago
  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Camilla-Whittington/publication/228347583_Platypus_Venom_a_Review/links/00b7d518054327fd13000000/Platypus-Venom-a-Review.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Camilla-Whittington/pub... has a review of studies into the venom but the only source for the pain I’ve seen is the same, Fenner 1992. That said, a decent amount of painful stuff exists in Australia, so I wouldn’t be surprised; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides springs to mind.

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago

Nasty? No! They're adorable. I advocate for their domestication to anyone who'll listen. They're known to be very tame and friendly with in a short duration of repeated human closeness. Sure, an adult Devil could bite your hand off, but so can a dog, and Devils tend to prefer already dead things.

jjtheblunt 4y ago
are you talking about domesticating a Tasmanian Devil or a Platypus?
- mc32 4y ago
  It seems clear they’re advocating for ‘devils.
AlbertCory 4y ago
OK, well, each to his own. Everything in Oz can kill you anyway :) My "contact" was limited to watching one run around and around his cage at some zoo or animal preserve. He certainly looked plenty pissed off.
- yarg 4y ago
  > run around and around his cage > He certainly looked plenty pissed off. Wouldn't you?
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    All of the animals could reasonably be pissed off, but some are resigned to their fate.
yarg 4y ago
Poor little fighty bastards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease. Human efforts at eradication left them with such low genetic diversity that contagious cancer became a thing. https://www.aussieark.org.au/tasmanian-devil/ https://www.aussieark.org.au/tasmanian-devil/
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  Yep, that's the primary driver for my advocating their domestication.
sohkamyung 4y ago
Devils are apparently more bark than bite [1] > Once deposited into a hessian sack for processing, devils tend to sit very still and let you do anything with them, including opening their mouth to check for devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) – all while wide awake and not anaesthetised! Every single person who has witnessed this incredibly calm, still behaviour from wild devils has been astounded at how easy they are to handle, how relaxed they appear lying on the biologists’ lap, and how biologists still have all their fingers after opening the devil’s mouth wide like a dentist! [1] https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/tasmanian-devil-australian-mammal/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/tasmanian-devil-australian...
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  Yeah, I recently listened to a researcher on one podcast or another who was saying this same thing. I'm willing to bet all adult mammals will exhibit similar behaviour in the right circumstances for them, they had to have been capable of being passive and calm in order for their mothers not to kill them.
onethought 4y ago
This parody right? Devils are know to bite their own family’s faces off. Even people trying to conserve their population dislike handling them directly. They are horrible critters … they don’t seem to serve a purpose in the wider ecosystem other than nastiness…
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  No parody, they're typically ultra calm when they're being held, and generally love play. https://youtu.be/aw87M8MVGBM https://youtu.be/aw87M8MVGBM https://youtu.be/wEK72aqu4Ek https://youtu.be/wEK72aqu4Ek

mostlystatic 4y ago

I wonder how real the "not relieved by morphine is", or what that means exactly. Looked into this a while back and only found this source [1]: > Intravenous access was obtained and 15 mg of morphine was given slowly. Over the next five minutes very little pain relief occurred. > [...] > A further 7.5 mg of morphine was given intravenously 15 minutes after the first dose, but again this produced little relief. Over the ensuing 15 minutes a further 7.5 mg of morphine was injected intravenously, which eventually reduced the pain to a tolerable level. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1992.tb141302.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.5694/j.1326-5377....

rmccue 4y ago
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Camilla-Whittington/publication/228347583_Platypus_Venom_a_Review/links/00b7d518054327fd13000000/Platypus-Venom-a-Review.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Camilla-Whittington/pub... has a review of studies into the venom but the only source for the pain I’ve seen is the same, Fenner 1992. That said, a decent amount of painful stuff exists in Australia, so I wouldn’t be surprised; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides springs to mind.