Survival of the... Not Fittest?

A Christian Creationist's Perspective on the Family Tree and Baraminology of the Platypus (Ornithorhynchidae).

To construct the family tree of the platypus, I had to research a number of scientific articles and museum sites with photographs and descriptions. The fossil record of monotremes is sparse and, while there seems to be enough being dug up in Australia, the rest of the world seems absent of specimens. The only nearly definite platypus fossils before the flood belong to Odurodon. Other monotreme genera like Kollikodon, Teinolophos, Steropodon, and Kryoryctes are too fragmentary to say what they are for certain and the evolutionists who described them are obviously biased, believing that monotremes evolved in Australia. Below is the family tree of the platypus for starters, and an explanation of the tree after that.

This jaw fragment is all that is known
of Kollikodon. In all honesty, I can't
pinpoint anything that would single it
out as platypus, racoon, or anything
else for that matter. Just unprofessional
 eyeballing, it dose look a bit like a
young 'coon. In any case, I highly doubt
that this is an example of a Pre Flood platypus.

Steropodon is no better. Though, from my point of view,
the teeth do look a little more like those of Obdurodon.

In Teinolophos, though the teeth look like platypus 

enough, the back end of the jaw hardly resembles that of a the modern platypus jaws I've seen. This drawing is acomposite of both right and left mandibles for the mostand accurate perspective.

Vertically on the map, time increases from bottom to top, starting at the creation, through the Flood and Ice Age, to the present. Living species are represented by a dot at the end of a branch and rectangles represent extinct species. In the case of Ornithorhynchus, fossils have been found in Ice Age deposits. The entire limb containing Steropodon, Teinolophos, and Kollikodon is dubious, and I represented this with a large question mark at its base. Specifically, I have doubts about Kollikodon ritchiei and this is noted by a large question mark by the genus name. 

Obdurodon dicksoni from a lateral view. Besides the two teeth protruding
out of the maxilla, it is practically identical to the skull of the platypus.

Kollikodon ritchiei is also controversial because only a single opalised jaw fragment is known. If it is a platypus, the length of the creature would have been nearly a meter, much larger than today's platypus (Australian Museum). Like Kollikodon, both Teinolophos and Steropodon had double-rooted molars, rather than the multirooted molars of modern monotremes. Teinolophos and Steropodon are placed closer together on the tree but, in hindsight, Steropodon and Kollikodon might be the more closely related between the three because of their size and geographical similarity. Both Steropodon and Kollikodon are fairly large (larger than living platypus) but Teinolophos is tiny (under a dozen centimetres--the dwarf among platypus) judging from the jaw fragment that has been found (Rowe et al. 2008). Despite its diminutive size, Teinolophos is considered a platypus based on the similarities of its teeth (Springer et Krajewski 2009) and features of the jaw which indicate a hearing structure similar to living platypus (Rich et al. 2001). A hypothetical bill (indicated by grooves on the jaw) is also postulated. Because all three are known from such scrappy remains, I have placed a question mark by their branch. 

Obdurodon dicksoni from a dorsal view. The skull is
complete enough to be confident that this is of the
platypus kind.

All four of the above addressed species are known from dinosaur dominated habitats (Eumeralla Formation, Griman Creek Formation, etc). All are controversial, especially Kollikodon and Teinolophos which may turn out to be something totally different from platypus all together. Obdurodon fossils, however, bear more similarity to modern platypus than the previous four. In particular, O. dicksoni is known for a well preserved complete specimen (UCMP). There is no doubt that this animal was of the same created kind as the platypus. There were, however, a few differences, mainly involving the skull. The side of the head had a boney process whereas, in modern platypus, this region is flattened. The other two species of Obdurodon are distinguished by locality and small differences. O. subamericanum--formerly Monotrematum subamericanum--is known from a tooth found in South America (Archer et al. 1999). I've placed this species in the same genus as Obdurodon because of the extreme similarity of the teeth (Pascual et al. 2002). O. insignis is from partial skeletons and skulls in the Etudunna Formation of Australia while O. dicksoni is from the Namba Formation (Archer et al. 1999). O. dicksoni is known only from a skull and other cranial elements (Australian Museum).

The most notable feature that is traceable throughout the family tree of the platypus is its teeth. As was noted, the genetic variability of platypus teeth can be seen in the fluctuating number of roots on the molars. More striking however, is that, while Odurodon retained its teeth into adulthood, modern platypus loose their teeth as adults (UCMP). I wonder if Noah knew what he was doing when he took a degenerate platypus on the ark... Just kidding. More likely the platypus started loosing its teeth sometime in the early Ice Age. Now horny plates have replaced them as extensions of the bone (without teeth, natural selection ensured that the platypus had something to chew with).

Ornithorhynchus anatinus (the modern platypus) has fossils dated by evolutionists in both the Pleistocene and Pliocene (Archer et al. 1999). Both fossils are likely post-Flood because of the striking similarity to modern Australian fauna (Flannery et. Archer 1984). Because only skulls are known of this species, all comparisons in the tree are derived from features there. It is a testament against evolution that a platypus should loose its teeth through time, rather than gaining better ones. The strange platypus is indeed a poor story, but genetic variability sustains it today. 

References:

Archer, Michael, Rick Arena, Mina Bassarova, Karen Black, Jenni Brammall, Bernard Cooke, phil Creaser, Kirsten Crosby, Anna Gillespie, Henk Godthelp, Miranda Gott, Suzanne J. Hand, Benjamin Kear, Alan Krikmann, Brian Mackness, Jeanette Muirhead, Anne Musser, Troy Myers, Neville Pledge, Yuanqing Wang, and Steven Wroe. 1999. "The Evolutionary History and Diversity of Australian Mammals". Australian Mammology. 21: 1-45. http://www.create.unsw.edu.au/research/files/Archer%20et%20al%20%281999%29%20The%20evolutionary%20history%20of%20Australian%20m.PDF.

Australian Museum. "Animal Species: Obdurodon dicksoni". http://australianmuseum.net.au/Obdurodon-dicksoni. Accessed December 28, 2012.

Australian Museum. "Animal Species: Platypus". http://australianmuseum.net.au/Platypus. Accessed December 28, 2012.

Flannery, T. F. and M. Archer. 1984. "Macropodoids (Marsupiala) of the Early Pliocene Bow Local Fauna, Central Eastern New south Wales". Australian Zoologist. 21: 357-383. http://biostor.org/cache/pdf/9a/9d/45/9a9d456477e3a72d19ef76227ccd71bf.pdf.

Pascual, Rosendo, Francisco J. Goin, Lucia Balarino, and Daniel E. Udrizar Sauthier. 2002. "New Data on the Palaeocene Monotreme Monotrematum subamericanum, and the Convergent Evolution of Triangulate Molars." Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 47(3): 487-492. http://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app47/app47-487.pdf. 

Phillips, Matthew J., T. H. Bennet, and Michael S. Y. Lee. January, 2010. "Reply to Camens: How Recently Did Modern Monotremes Diversify?". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 107. No. 4. http://www.pnas.org/content/107/4/E13.full.

Pridmore, Peter A., Thomas H. Rich, Pat Vickers-Rich, and Petr B. Gambaryan . December, 2005. "A Tchyglossid-Like Humerus from the Early Cretaceous of South-Eastern Australia". Journal of Mammalian Evolution. Vol. 12. Nos. 3/4. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10914-005-6959-9.

Rich, Thomas H., Patricia Vickers-Rich, Peter Trusler, Timothy F. Flannery, Richard Cifelli, Andrew Constantine, Lesley Kool, and Nicholas Van Klaveren. 2001. "Monotreme Nature of the Early Cretaceous mammal Teinolophos". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. Vol. 46, No. 1, pp 113-118. http://app.pan.pl/archive/published/app46/app46-113.pdf.

Rowe, Timothy, Thomas H. Rich, Patricia Vickers-Rich, Mark Springer, and Michael O. Woodburne. "The Oldest Platypus and Its Bearing on Divergence Timing of the Platypus and Echidna Clans". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 105. No. 4. 1238-1242. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2234122/.

Springer, Mark S. and Carey W. Krajewski. Editors: Hedges, S. Blair and Sudhir Kumar. 2009. "Monotremes (Prototheria)." The Timetree of Life. Oxford University Press. New York. http://books.google.ca/books?id=9rt1c1hl49MC&pg=PA463&lpg=PA463&dq=Zaglossus+robustus+age&source=bl&ots=PT3IQehtvl&sig=8DV2jpHgLmCXhWRVBb5_yMZnsQA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qMjYUNuYN4zuigLg8YGQBQ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Zaglossus%20robustus%20age&f=false.

UCMP (University of California Museum of Paleontology). "Monotremata: Fossil Record". http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/monotremefr.html. Accessed December 28, 2012.