Schmidt Meister's Grab Bag

[Schmidt Meister]

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[Schmidt Meister]

Baby platypus have no official baby name. Puggle is commonly used but it’s not official. There is a movement to officially call baby platypus, platypups.
Platypuses, or even just platypus, is the correct plural term for platypus. Platypi is incorrect.
Platypuses don’t have a collective term. This is because they’re solitary creatures, and collective terms are used for animals that hang out in groups or herds.
They are monotremes, meaning they are mammals (animals that produce milk for their young) that also lay eggs.
When female platypuses are ready to have their young, they burrow inside the ground on the riverbank and seal themselves into tunnel rooms. Each female then lays one to three eggs and places them between her rump and her tail to keep them warm. After about 10 days, the eggs hatch and the bean-size babies nurse for three to four months inside their burrow, according to the Australian Museum.
Females lay eggs and incubates them until they hatch using an egg tooth like most birds have. They are born hairless but have grown a full coat by the time they leave the nest. They are about the size of a nickel when born. They lose the egg tooth at about 4 months old. Platypus are unique because they can lay eggs like oviparous animals and produce milk for their young as mammals do. Because of their uniqueness, they don’t have any nipples to feed their babies with. The new mothers sweat the milk out, and baby platypuses drink the milk that has pooled in the grooves of mom’s skin, and they will also suck the milk out of hair that she has.
Adult platypus scoop up gravel or small rocks to help them grind their food.
Baby platypus cannot swim and like the adults, have webbed feet, a duck-like bill, fur like an otter, and tails like beavers.
Platypus can take care of themselves at 5 months of age.
Only the males are venomous, and only during mating season. The venom causes severe pain to humans. They don’t have a venomous bite, they instead have a venom gland, located near their pelvises, that connect to hollow spurs on their hind legs, according to toxinologists at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Young females also have these spurs, but they lose them in the first year of life.
Adult male platypuses can range between about 15.7 inches to 24.8 inches long, from the tip of the bill to tip of the tail, according to the Australian Museum. Adult females range from 14.5 to 21.6 inches long. Adult males weigh about 1.7 to 6.6 lbs. and females weigh about 1.3 to 3.7 lbs.
Platypuses have dense, thick fur that helps them stay warm underwater. Most of the fur is dark brown, except for a patch of lighter fur near each eye and lighter-colored fur on the underside. Under ultraviolet light, however, platypuses' drab brown fur glows green and blue, Live Science previously reported. It's possible that this biofluorescence helps reduce the animals' visibility to predators, but the eerie glow may serve little or no ecological function. Scientists are still investigating this question.
The bill of a platypus resembles that of a duck and has a smooth texture that feels like suede. It is also flexible and rubbery. The skin of the bill holds tens of thousands of sensory receptors that help the platypus navigate underwater and detect movement of potential food, such as shrimp.
Platypuses live in Australia in a range that extends from western Victoria to about as far north as Cooktown in Queensland, meaning they occupy a large stretch of the east and southeast coast of the country, according to the Australian Platypus Conservatory. The creatures can also be found on Tasmania and King Island, as well as on Kangaroo Island, where platypuses were introduced by humans in the early 1900s.
Platypuses occupy freshwater systems, including river basins, lakes, ponds and streams, throughout their habitat range. The animals spend about 10 to 12 hours a night in the water, hunting for food; they are most active during nighttime and dusk, because they are nocturnal. They can stay underwater for only 30 to 140 seconds, the Australian Museum notes.
During the day, they hide out in burrows on the shore, where earthen tunnels open up into oval-shaped underground chambers, according to the San Diego Zoo.
Platypuses are carnivorous. As they swim, they detect food along the muddy bottom of the river, stream, pond or lake using only their sensitive bills, since the animals actually close their eyes, ears and nostrils while foraging underwater.
When platypuses find something interesting, like insect larvae, they scoop it up in their bills, store it in their cheek pouches and swim to the surface. The animals also eat shrimp, swimming beetles, water bugs and tadpoles, as well as the occasional worm, freshwater pea mussel or snail. Platypuses have even been observed eating cicadas and moths that they catch at the water's surface.
After coming up from a dive, platypuses float atop the water and chew their food using "grinding plates" in their mouths. The animals sometimes pick up mud and sand in their cheek pouches, and as they eat, they expel this inedible sediment, along with excess water, through grooves in their lower jaws.

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

You never know when you'll need it ...

[Schmidt Meister]

In 1953, a fledgling company called Rocket Chemical Company and its staff of three set out to create a line of rust-prevention solvents and degreasers for use in the aerospace industry. Working in a small lab in San Diego, California, it took them 40 attempts to get the water displacing formula worked out. But they must have been really good, because the original secret formula for WD-40® - which stands for Water Displacement perfected on the 40th try, is still in use today.
Convair, an aerospace contractor, first used WD-40® to protect the outer skin of the Atlas Missile from rust and corrosion. The product actually worked so well that several employees snuck some WD-40® cans out of the plant to use at home.
A few years following WD-40®’s first industrial use, Rocket Chemical Company founder Norm Larsen experimented with putting WD-40® into aerosol cans, reasoning that consumers might find a use for the product at home as some of the employees had. The product made its first appearance on store shelves in San Diego in 1958.
In 1960 the company nearly doubled in size, growing to seven people, who sold an average of 45 cases per day from the trunk of their cars to hardware and sporting goods stores in the San Diego area.
In 1961 the first full truckload order for WD-40® was filled when employees came in on a Saturday to produce additional concentrate to meet the disaster needs of the victims of Hurricane Carla along the U.S. Gulf Coast. WD-40® was used to recondition flood and rain damaged vehicles and equipment.
In 1968 goodwill kits containing WD-40® were sent to soldiers in Vietnam to prevent moisture damage on firearms and help keep them in good working condition.
In 1969 the company was renamed after its only product, WD-40 Company, Inc.

https://www.wd40.com/history/

[Schmidt Meister]

I've never purchased B&J's products and I'm very proud of that since they eventually outed themselves as Commies ...

[Schmidt Meister]

Cats are assholes ...

[railfancwb]

42 minutes ago, Schmidt Meister said:

I've never purchased B&J's products and I'm very proud of that since they eventually outed themselves as Commies ...

Wonder how much of this Pelosi has in her walk in ice cream freezer. 

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

One of my wife's nicknames for me is 'turd' ... it's how I roll.

 

[Schmidt Meister]

Don't get bent ... if you can't laugh at it, you just have no sense of humor. Bless your heart.

[Schmidt Meister]

[DWARREN123]

I would like to have a set of these!

[miketx]

2 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

Don't get bent ... if you can't laugh at it, you just have no sense of humor. Bless your heart.

 

[Schmidt Meister]

6 minutes ago, miketx said:

 

Then my mission here is a success, lol.

[miketx]

[miketx]

[Schmidt Meister]

[Schmidt Meister]

[railfancwb]

14 minutes ago, Schmidt Meister said:

If white people fleeing the racist South African government were allowed to enter the United States as refugees, the picture on the left would become relevant. 

[Schmidt Meister]