A few months back I worked on the installation of a traveling exhibit that was making a stop-over in Ottawa at the Museum of Nature (or as I have always called it, the Dinosaur Museum) called Extreme Mammals. I've been meaning to go and check it out as a museum-goer and not a thing-setter-upper before it left town. Plus, I am cheap, and Thursday's they do a free admission thing at the museum.

Amongst many bigger, scarier and more extreme mammals was the Platypus. Not so extreme by normal measures, except for that it's part beaver, part duck, and has poisonous claws. Poisonous claws that the males uses to subdue the females for mating purposes. Or, in layman's terms, the little bastards propagate the species thanks to making use of roofie techniques that might be used by any number of sleazy douche-bags in meat-market bars. Another fine example of the insanity that is the miracle of nature and animal ways.



There are plenty of non-shocking and offensive animals to observe as well. If in Ottawa, you have 'till November 6th to check it out before I go in to help pack it up and it rolls on to the next town.