I am not particularly familiar with phys.org. Briefly scanning it, it looks pretty normal.
Most likely it's just someone stepping outside their wheelhouse. I mean, I trust PZ on biology, but I wouldn't incredulously accept legal advice from him. So, maybe reliable for physics/space, but unreliable for biology is my guess?
The platypus is not a bird/reptile hybrid. That is a wild misinterpretation of a genome study which happened a few years back.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/10/the-platypus-g...