Imagine stumbling upon a creature that looks like a mash-up of a duck, a beaver, and an otter—with a dash of poison thrown in ...

But does this imply that the groups' last common ancestor also used these venoms? No, it does not, and here's why: It turns out that venomous snakes and the platypus have different duplications of ...

The overlapping features has led some scientists to consider whether the platypus actually represents a missing link between reptiles and mammals. Amniotes are the common ancestor of all mammals, ...