Echidna Facts
Echidna Facts
2. Echidnas are Australia's most widely distributed mammal, and along with the Platypus, are the world's only egg laying mammals! They are classified as a monotreme mammal, which basically means instead of giving birth to live young like marsupial mammals they lay eggs.
3. There are 2 types of echidna: long nosed and short nosed.
4. Echidnas have a short stocky body which is covered in brown/cream coloured spines. The spines are actually modified hairs (a bit like your finger nails).
5 .Echidnas have a long snout (or beak) which enables them to break up rotting logs and termite mounds when searching for food.
6. When frightened, Echidnas curl into a ball with their snout and legs tucked beneath them and their sharp spines sticking out. They commonly wedge themselves under a rock or dig down into the ground for extra protection.
7. Echidnas have a long sticky tongue which helps them to collect their diet of small invertebrates including ants, termites, grubs, larvae and worms. They can eat up to two kilograms of termites in one meal!
8. Echidnas have no teeth so food is crushed between hard pads on the roof of their mouth and on the back of the tongue.
9. The Echidna's courtship involves love sick male echidnas queuing up behind a female, nose to tail, forming long trains.
10. Echidnas are insectivores. They use their long, sticky tongue to catch ants, termites, other insects, and earthworms.
11. There are two main types of echidna: the short-beaked and the long-beaked.
13. Echidnas have been known to live for up to fifty years.
14. Each of the echidna’s spines is formed from a single hair.
15. An echidna can lift objects twice its weight.
16. Echidnas drink water and can swim.
17. Echidnas like to bask in the sun like reptiles. They also lay eggs like reptiles. The eggs incubate for 10 days inside the mother’s pouch before hatching.
18. A baby echidna is called a puggle. Puggles are born blind and hairless.
19. Puggles drink milk. Echidna milk is pink because of the high iron content.
20. Ancestors of echidnas roamed the planet with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs died out but monotremes are still alive.
21. Echidnas are active day and night and are mainly solitary animals.
22. Echidnas are strong diggers and they have long, sharp claws. Short-beaked echidnas eat ants and termites. Long-beaked echidnas eat worms and insect larvae.
23. Echidnas have a small mouth and toothless jaw. They have a long, sticky tongue which sticks out from its snout.
24. The female echidna lays an egg 22 days after mating. It transfers the egg to the pouch where it hatches 10 days later.
25. The egg is usually in the far end of the pouch so the tiny Echidna must travel around six times its own body length to get its first drink of milk.
26. The mother doesn't have teats, so the baby clings to specialised hairs within the pouch where it suckles milk oozing from the mother's mammary glands. Young puggles grow incredibly fast and their mothers spend a lot of time foraging for food to keep up the milk supply.
27. Young have an “egg tooth” like birds to help break out of the egg.
28. "Echidna" derives from the Latin word for "viper”Tongue protrudes like a snake.
29. A short-beaked echidna’s spiny coat provides an excellent defence when it is threatened.
30. The name Tachyglossus is latin for ‘quick tongue’, and refers to the speed with which its tongue can catch ants and termites.
31. Short-beaked echidnas are one of three species of egg-laying mammals.
32. They do not have teats, but secrete milk through several pores in the belly.
33. The short-beaked echidna is one of only two mammals in Australia that feeds predominantly on ants.
34. The short-beaked echidna can swim.
35. The short-beaked echidna has no scrotum, its testes are internal.
36. Scientists believe that the short-beaked echidna may possess electroreceptors in its snout that can detect electrical signals given off by the insects it feeds on.
37. Some short-beaked echidnas have lived for over 50 years in captivity.
38. Adults have no significant predators although they may occasionally be eaten by dingos or foxes. Young may also be eaten by goannas. Motor vehicles are also known to cause mortality.
Comments
Post a Comment