Is the platypus a remarkable example of evolutionary diversity (yay! diversity!) or is he uniquely designed by the Creationist god? I can't give you the answer to that. Science and mythology, and logic and art, they all make the world go 'round.



What do I believe? As answer to that, here's an Australian aboriginal dream story that I came across recently:

"In our Dreaming, before time began, the Old Woman Who lives in the Pleiades, the creator of all living things, came down to Earth to help a Wood Duck, a Black Duck, a Water Rat and a Plover. She had these wounded creatures in her dilly-bag when the Rainbow Serpent, one of her creations who was, unfortunately, given to mischief, called up a wild storm. The wind roared, the lightning flashed across the sky and the land shuddered with thunder. The Old Woman took shelter beneath a huge Redgum but lost her dilly- bag which tumbled with some large rocks, loosened by the rain, into the river. When the storm abated she recovered her dilly-bag but the poor creatures had drowned, the Water Rat crushed flat by a large rock. Quickly she lit a fire and softened some Spinifex gum with which she fashioned, from the body of the Water Rat with its flat tail, the feet and bill of the ducks and the spurs of the Plover, a most curious creature. She then breathed life into her creation and placed it in the river and Platypus remains thus, even today."