Why is the echidna called that? Explosive mixture: the most amazing animal of Australia Echidna animal where it lives
relatives. Currently, their number has been reduced to just one representative - the echidna. Tachyglossus aculeatus are found in eastern Australia and its westernmost regions. They live among bushes (in dry bush), preferring rocky areas. The main defense is long needles. Nore doesn't dig.
You rarely see an echidna larger than 40 cm in size. The small body is covered with long 6-centimeter needles of white and brown shades. Short, coarse brown hair grows between the needles. This land animal has a long, thin snout ending in a small, narrow mouth. The parotid region of the Australian echidna is distinguished by a particularly thick and long coat of fur. The tail is very small and looks like a tiny protrusion covered with spines.
Beautiful photos of echidna: During the day, an unusual animal hides in the hollows of trees, in the voids under their roots. At night he goes in search of food. It feeds on termites, ants, and sometimes earthworms. Sensing prey, the echidna sharply throws out its sticky long tongue, to which the victim sticks. During the cold months it flows into a short time
into hibernation (fortunately, subcutaneous fat allows you to do without food). The echidna has fine hearing, but very poor eyesight. Hatches eggs. The egg is located in a primitive pouch formed during the breeding season. The cub is fed with milk.
Video: Echidna (lat. Tachyglossidae)
Classification Family:
Echidnovae Squad:
Monotremes Class:
Mammals Subclass
: Primordial beasts (cloacae) Type:
Chordata Subtype:
Vertebrates Kingdom:
Animals Domain:
Eukaryotes Dimensions: The body length is on average 35-45 cm, weight - from 5 to 7 kg. Average duration
life - 50 years.
Crossword puzzle question: “What is the name of a medium-sized animal that has hedgehog quills, a beak-like mouth, a pouch, lays eggs like , but feeds its young with milk like ?” - the answer is echidna.
What does an echidna look like? This is a small, squat animal that looks like a porcupine or a hedgehog. Its back is strewn with thick needles up to 6 cm in length, dark at the base and light at the end. The rest of the body is covered with coarse hair of dark brown, brown or black color.
The small head sits on such a short neck that it is almost invisible. From the outside it seems that the head starts straight from the body.
Deep on the sides of the head are medium-sized eyes, which, in addition to the eyelids, have a nictitating membrane.
There are no external auricles. The auditory canal has the shape of a fairly wide slit, located almost on the neck itself and hidden by a fold of skin. When the echidna listens, it lifts this fold.
The muzzle ends in a small mouth, elongated in the shape of a narrow beak. Scientists call the echidna's mouth "beak-like."
She cannot open it wide; the mouth opening is very narrow - no more than 2-3 centimeters, which is enough to stick out a long sticky tongue, which the echidna uses to grab food.
The animal has short, wide and strong paws, each paw has 5 toes with strong large claws, with which it digs the ground well. In addition, on each hind paw there is one special claw 5 cm long, with which it combs the fur and cleans the needles.
Interesting! On your heels hind legs Male echidnas have horny spurs, hollow inside, connected to a special gland, the secretion of which is poisonous. But scientists who have been observing animals for many years have never noticed that these spurs were used in any way, so there is an opinion that these processes are an atavism.
The echidna has a very short tail, often invisible. He's covered in needles.
The animal belongs to the order of monotremes, which means that all its feces, urine, and sexual secretions exit through a single common opening - the cloaca.
Actually, this is a very cute and harmless creature, but for some reason ancient greek mythology describes it completely differently.
Among the Ancient Greeks, the echidna was a gigantic creature with a beautiful woman's face and the body of a snake. The half-woman, half-snake had a ferocious character and kidnapped travelers.
Ancient Greek mythology says that she was killed by Hercules (there are versions that Hippo, King Oedipus or the many-eyed giant Argus killed the echidna).
How the ancients imagined the echidna
The mythology of the Gauls endowed the echidna with a beautiful female face with the body of a crocodile. The girl's forehead is burning gem, which she takes out every time she goes swimming.
Anyone who manages to steal this gem will become incredibly rich: all underground treasures will be revealed to him.
Habitat
The echidna's natural habitat is Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. Therefore, this animal is also called Australian echidna
The animal prefers damp, shady places with dense vegetation, forests, hilly or mountainous terrain, and sometimes climbs up to 2500 meters above sea level. Avoids the plains.
This animal does not have a permanent habitat. It stops to rest or spend the night in the first suitable place - under the roots of trees, in rock crevices, in small caves, in the burrows of other animals, most often rabbits or.
Or maybe just lie down in the thick grass. Having rested, he immediately leaves and forgets about his temporary abode.
One of the first sketches of an echidna
Interesting! The first researcher who described the echidna in more or less detail was George Shaw in 1792. After him, many researchers became interested in the mammal. But it is very difficult to study this animal, since it is “snide” - very secretive and cautious, and in every possible way avoids interference in its life. The echidna somehow senses that she is being watched and immediately hides in a secluded place. For a long time It was not possible to take a photo of it, so sketches of the animal were presented in the scientific literature.
Characteristic
We figured out what an echidna looks like, where it lives, and now we find out its main characteristics and habits.
The echidna is a solitary animal. She always prowls alone, only during the mating season the males unite in groups while courting the female.
The animal moves awkwardly, when walking, it waddles from side to side, bends its head and the front part of its body to the ground. But in case of danger he runs away very quickly
To protect yourself from your natural enemies - dingoes, foxes, Tasmanian devil, a marsupial wolf, sometimes a monitor lizard - she curls up into a ball.
But an experienced predator still gets to her tender tummy, which remains partially unprotected.
Advice! If by chance you come across an echidna on your way, do not try to pick it up. Curling up into a ball, it inflicts deep and painful wounds with its long and strong needles.
The spines on the echidna's back are very sharp and thick, providing excellent protection against any predator.
If you can’t escape, then the animal, with amazing dexterity and speed, buries itself into the ground so that only needles stick out from above.
It is very difficult to get it out of such a hiding place. In addition, the Australian echidna is a good swimmer.
Another way of defense is the foul-smelling liquid that it releases from under its tail if the enemy comes too close.
She has weak eyesight, but sensitive hearing and a keen sense of smell.
It often hunts at night, but scientists have found that the echidna is not a strictly nocturnal animal; it can hunt during the day in favorable weather, when it is not very hot.
The fact is that she has no sweat glands, and her body temperature is only 30-32°C, so high temperatures It does not tolerate air well, as well as low air.
Therefore, when it gets colder, this animal becomes lethargic, vital processes in the body are inhibited.
Interesting! With a significant decrease in temperature, the animal may even go into hibernation, which lasts from 1 to 4 months. During this period, nutrition provides a supply of subcutaneous fat, which the echidna has gained over the season.
Key Features
The echidna is an amazing animal; it combines the characteristics of other animals:
- I took the quills from a porcupine or a hedgehog,
- has a pouch like a possum or kangaroo,
- lays eggs for procreation, like a bird,
- feeds its young with milk,
- eats exactly like an anteater
- can hibernate like a bear,
- digs holes no worse than a mole,
- goes without water for a long time, like a camel,
- If the animal gets angry, it grunts cutely, like a pig.
Interesting! The echidna is home to the world's largest flea, Bradiopsylla echidnae, 4 mm long.
Nutrition
The main food of the echidna is ants and termites. Having discovered an anthill, she immediately begins to deftly tear it apart, going deeper until she gets to the ants. He immediately begins to lick them off with his long sticky tongue.
A sticky secretion, with which her tongue is generously lubricated, is secreted from large paired salivary glands.
The echidna has no teeth in its mouth, but the upper palate is strewn with hard keratin plates, against which it crushes insects, pressing them tightly with its tongue.
The same fate awaits termites if an Australian echidna suddenly finds a termite mound. Moreover, she easily breaks the hard outer walls of the termite mound with her paws.
If she smells ants or termites under the bark of a tree, she can easily tear off a piece of bark with her front paws and lick off the insects she finds.
Interesting! Echidnas make very fast movements with their tongue; they can stick it out more than 100 times in a minute!
In search of a treat, the Australian echidna can move stones, even large ones, and sometimes simply comb the forest floor with its sensitive nose-beak.
Along with food, she, like birds, swallows a large number of earth and small stones. They help digest food by grinding it in the stomach.
In addition to ants and termites, the animal's diet includes bugs, worms, and sometimes mollusks.
Echidnas drink almost no water at all. They get the liquid from the insects they eat.
Interesting! Scientists suggest that there are special cells on the echidna’s nose, with the help of which it picks up electromagnetic impulses emitted by all living creatures. Only sharks and whales have such receptors; they have not yet been found in any land mammal.
Reproduction
Scientists have long been trying to figure out how the Australian echidna reproduces. But it was only in 2003 that reliable research results in this area were published.
After 12 years of observations, it was found that the mating season of echidnas begins in May and ends in September (this is the period of the Australian winter).
Only at this time do animals agree to live in a small group, which consists of one female and several males (usually 4-6 individuals).
The animals feed and rest together, and when moving from place to place they follow each other in single file, and the female is always at the head of this kind of “mating caravan”.
Baby echidna
Males courtship for a long time - a whole month, but very modestly - they simply trail behind the female and sniff her, poking their noses into the tail of the only female in the group.
The female emits a strong musky odor during this period.
After 4 weeks of courtship, the female lies down on the ground, indicating that she is ready to mate.
The males perk up and begin to cheerfully circle around it, throwing away clods of earth and trampling a trench up to 30 cm deep.
Then the “boys” begin to push, rather roughly pushing each other out of the trench, until there is only one winner left, who immediately begins to mate with the female. Mating occurs on the side and lasts for an hour.
Interesting! The male echidna has an amazing penis - it has 4 heads at once.
Echidna pregnancy lasts 3-4 weeks (the hotter it is, the shorter the pregnancy).
Afterwards, she lays a leathery egg in a special brood pouch - a fold of skin that appears only during motherhood.
Interesting! Biologists still cannot understand how the echidna manages to roll an egg into its pouch. Although it is tiny - with an average diameter of 15 mm and a weight of only 1.5 grams, it still cannot do this with its small mouth, and the echidna’s legs are too short and clumsy. There is a hypothesis that when laying an egg, the animal curls up into a ball, the egg rolls out of the cloaca directly onto the stomach, where it is glued to the fold with a sticky secretion.
Gestation lasts 10 days, after which a miniature cub hatches from the egg - puggle (zoological name) - up to 15 mm long and weighing half a gram.
He is completely helpless, his eyes are hidden by leathery eyelids, hind legs not yet developed.
Interesting! To be born, the baby breaks the shell of the egg with a horny growth on the nose.
Within a few hours, the baby, with the help of its front paws, moves to the front of the mother's pouch.
Here is the so-called “milky field” - an area of the skin where up to 100 pores of the mammary glands open, from which very nutritious milk is secreted. The baby licks it off with its tongue.
Interesting! Echidna's milk Pink colour due to its high iron content.
The puggle remains in the mother's pouch for up to 2 months. During this time, he gains up to 400 grams of weight, that is, he increases his original weight by about 800 times!
This growth rate is a record among mammals. Just at 2 months of age, the puggle's spines begin to grow, and the mother kicks it out of the pouch.
She digs out a special shelter for him under tree roots or stones and leaves the baby in this secluded place.
Every 4-5 days the echidna visits its cub to feed it.
More often it is not necessary, firstly, so as not to attract the attention of predators, and secondly, the nutritional value of echidna milk is very high. This continues for 6-7 months until the baby becomes completely independent.
The period of a puggle's life in a hole is critical for it. He is very vulnerable at this time. If a predator finds it, then the baby echidna will have no chance to escape.
The only defense is the pungent, unpleasant odor that comes from the puggle, as well as the fact that it behaves very, very quietly, making practically no sounds.
Some facts about echidna reproduction:
- Sexual maturity in females occurs at 3-4 years,
- it reproduces very rarely - on average, it lays an egg once every 4-5 years,
- The echidna always lays only 1 egg,
- the mother's pouch is a temporary phenomenon. She disappears after the mother throws out the cub,
- During the incubation of the egg and the puggle's stay in the pouch, the temperature there is higher than the rest of the animal's body.
Interesting! In the wild, the Australian echidna lives 15-17 years, and in captivity the animal lives up to 45 years!
Having an Australian echidna at home is a very bad idea. This animal will move furniture in search of ants and termites, it does not shine with intelligence, cannot be trained at all, does not become attached to humans, but is quite curious and can stick its nose and beak where its owners least expect it
The photo shows echidnas crossing the highway in single file. They are moving towards a small place. IN Lately More and more often, these animals began to appear near human homes. They climb into gardens and flower beds. Australian housewives are forced to call specialists who move the echidnas back into the forest. Scientists are puzzled by this behavior of these amazing animals
Echidnas feel great at the zoo. They live in captivity all over the world and, as it turns out, really love milk. But they cannot reproduce in unnatural conditions.
Only 5 zoos in the world managed to obtain offspring from echidnas. But puggles, unfortunately, died at a young age.
A miracle happened in 2012 at the Perth Zoo in Western Australia. Here scientists during the breeding program Australian echidnas in captivity, it was possible to obtain healthy offspring from two females at once.
Moreover, the puggles grew up and became parents themselves in August 2015. Thus, the world's first baby echidna was born in this zoo, whose father and mother were also born in captivity.
Echidna: an amazing animal from Australia
The echidna is a small, squat animal that looks like a porcupine or a hedgehog. Its back is strewn with thick needles up to 6 cm in length, dark at the base and light at the end. The remaining parts of the body are covered with coarse hair of dark brown, brown or black color.
The Australian echidna is one of the many species of egg-laying animals belonging to the mammalian family. It lives in the wild not only in Australia, but also in Tasmania and New Guinea.
Due to its ability to adapt to different climates, the animal can live in captivity in almost every corner of the world.
The echidna animal differs from other animals in its specificity.
- The appearance of the Australian echidna is very similar to the hedgehog, and also shares similar features with the porcupine. Almost the entire surface of the echidna’s body is covered with sharp spines.
- Unlike most animals, the echidna's offspring are born from laid eggs. This phenomenon mainly occurs in birds, but also in some mammals.
- Unlike birds, which hatch their eggs in nests, the Australian echidna carries them in a pouch located in abdominal cavity, like the kangaroo.
- The animal feeds in the same way as an anteater.
- The hatched offspring feed on mother's milk, as in most mammals.
- According to scientists, we can conclude that the echidna’s nose is equipped with unique cells responsible for capturing electromagnetic pulses. It is due to these signals that the animal can track all living creatures around it.
Very often you can find a comparison between the echidna and a bird; it is even often called the “bird beast”.
Appearance
On average, the body length of an echidna is about 40 centimeters. The entire surface of the back is covered with sharp needles mixed with fur. The echidna's neck is not visible, so it seems that its small head abruptly turns into a body. The mouth of this cute animal is tube-shaped, inside of which there is a long sticky tongue. In order to navigate the terrain, the echidna uses its beak. This is the only source of knowledge of the world, since The animal's vision is not the best.
The echidna's legs are very muscular, although short. The paws, like many mammals, have five toes. The echidna's claws are long, especially on its hind paw. The longest claw reaches five centimeters. They need it to comb their quills. In addition to the back, the animal has a small tail also covered with spines. The animal itself is squat, deftly digging the ground.
Lifestyle
By nature, the echidna prefers to live alone. The animal very carefully protects its territory and will fight with all its might against unwanted guests. But animals do not acquire permanent housing, preferring instead to move freely around the world. From the appearance of the animal you cannot say that it can swim across even a small body of water, but this is not so. Echidna swims beautifully.
Animals are doing well the instinct of self-preservation is developed. They are able to instantly react to danger and take appropriate measures to protect themselves from the enemy. The most common place for shelter during times of danger is thickets and rock cracks.
If the echidna comes face to face with its enemy, it begins to very quickly curl up into a ball, exposing its needles as a defensive weapon. This method is very helpful in saving the life of an echidna. But the animal uses this method of self-defense when the ground is too hard, and the echidna does not have the opportunity to dig a hole for itself to hide in.
Nutrition
The mainstay of this animal's diet is termites, molluscs and ants. To obtain food, the animal can easily destroy an anthill or peel off the bark of a tree. Due to its muscular paws, the Australian hedgehog can easily move away a large stone and feast on the insects and worms underneath. At the time of feeding, small pebbles and earth enter the digestive tract along with food, which have a beneficial effect on the process of digesting food.
Echidna has a very long and strong tongue, which she throws over long distances. Due to the sticky surface of the tongue, prey sticks to it, which the animal subsequently crushes in its mouth.
The hunting process mainly takes place at night. During the day, food production is carried out only in cool weather. This is because the animal completely lacks glands responsible for sweat secretion. And the body temperature does not exceed 32 degrees. That is why the Australian animal is very does not tolerate heat well, but neither does cold.
If the temperature is too low, the echidna becomes lethargic and all processes responsible for vital activity are dulled.
It is worth noting that the animal, under unfavorable weather conditions, can go into hibernation, which lasts up to 4 months. At that time, nutrients The body receives it from the fat accumulated over the season.
It is worth noting that echidnas consume very little water. The supply of necessary fluid for the normal functioning of the body comes with the eaten insects.
Reproduction
Until 2003, the reproduction process of these animals was a mystery to all humanity. Based on research results, it was found that the fertilization period for these animals begins in early spring and ends in early September.
In the moment mating season, echidnas can coexist together and live in a small group not exceeding 6 individuals. At the head of this group is always a female, who is the only one of her kind in this small “community”.
Courtship of the female by males continues for one month. If the female lies on her back, she shows that she is ready for fertilization.
At this moment, the males begin vigorous activity. They begin to trample a trench 30 centimeters deep around the female. The trench itself is a kind of “battlefield” on which males try to push each other beyond its boundaries. Ultimately, the winner mates with the female. The gestation period lasts up to 4 weeks. Moreover, the gestational age depends on the air temperature. The colder it is, the longer the pregnancy.
Who would have thought, but during pregnancy this mammal forms a special pouch in which females lay leather eggs. The baby, when born, usually after 10 weeks, moves to the front of the mother's pouch, where it feeds on milk. He stays there for 2 months, after which the female releases him into the open spaces of the outside world.
But her concern doesn’t end there. She digs a small hole, which is located in a secluded place, and every five days she comes to visit him. The duration of such visits lasts up to 6 months.
It is after this period, from a small cub, that an adult is formed, capable of independently obtaining food for itself and living separately from its mother.
Reproduction facts
- the female can have offspring from the age of 3;
- reproduction occurs extremely rarely, usually no more than once every five years;
- for one fertilization, a female can have only one child;
- bag for bearing offspring, appears only during pregnancy.
Due to its adaptation to climatic conditions, everyone can admire this marvelous animal in the zoo.
There is a creature on earth that is born from an egg, but feeds on its mother’s milk until it grows up. Today - the echidna animal and all the most interesting things connected with it.
"Double" of a porcupine. Animal echidna
Nature has created many unique creatures that do not resemble any other animal in their appearance. But it turns out that even such an unusual animal as a porcupine has a double in nature. Does anyone else really have the same spiky hair? The name of this “beauty with a spiked hairstyle” is echidna.
Echidnas are mammals. Like platypuses, echidnas belong to the order Monotremes. Today in nature there are only two varieties of this animal: the spiny echidna (this group includes the Australian echidna, Tasmanian echidna and Papuan echidna) and the woolly echidna (lives in the forests of New Guinea).
Appearance of the echidna
As mentioned above, the echidna is very similar in appearance to a porcupine. Its body is also covered with stiff hairs and sharp long needles, the color of which can be white, gray, black or brown.
Only, unlike the porcupine, average length The echidna's body is about 40 - 50 centimeters (but there are larger individuals - up to 55 centimeters). The animal weighs on average 7 kilograms.
Echidna is an interesting animal with funny face. The echidna's muzzle looks funny: instead of a nose and lips, it has a long “proboscis” called a beak. The animal has no teeth. The legs are short, but despite this, they are very strong. Thanks to this property, echidnas skillfully dig the soil.
The echidna's lifestyle and behavior
The echidna is a solitary animal. She is jealous of her territory and is unlikely to allow any of her own kind into her “hunting zone.” Although the animal’s body, at first glance, is heavy and not entirely suitable for swimming, the echidna moves calmly and easily by swimming. The animal is able to swim across even a large body of water. These animals do not have permanent housing.
Thanks to their acute vision, echidnas instantly notice danger and try to hide in thickets or rock cracks. Well, if the enemy overtakes the echidna where there is no natural shelter, then the animal begins to bury its body into the ground with incredible speed, leaving only its traumatic needles on the surface. Another method of defense against natural opponents is curling up into a ball. Echidnas do this when the area is too open and the soil is hard to burrow into.
Echidna diet
The main food for this animal is termites, small mollusks, worms and ants. In search of “dinner,” an echidna can dig up an anthill and tear off the bark from trees that once fell and are now home to small insects. In addition, the animal is able to move and even turn over a stone to get food.
The echidna used the “hedgehog” tactic; she covered the least protected parts of the body with her clawed paws
The hunting process occurs in this way: having approached the prey, with the help of its long and sticky tongue, the echidna captures the prey, presses it to the palate in its mouth and crushes it.
Echidna reproduction and breeding of offspring
The echidna is popularly called the bird-beast. But why? This is because the echidna hatches its offspring using eggs and feeds its young with milk. Like this unusual animal.
Three weeks after the mating season, the female echidna lays one egg. This egg has a very soft shell, so she carefully places it in her pouch and carries it for 10 days. And now, ten days later, a small cub is born, but he is not yet ready for adult life in the world wildlife because it is very weak. Therefore, for about fifty more days he lives in his mother’s pouch and eats her milk.
The female produces milk through pores located in the so-called milk fields. There are two such pores, but the echidna does not have nipples by nature. After just 50 days, the baby’s needles begin to grow, so a caring mother transplants him into a specially dug hole. The female herself goes hunting and comes to the mink once every 4 or 5 days to feed her baby milk. And this happens until the cub is seven months old.
Echidna, despite his appearance, which resembles a cross between an anteater and a hedgehog, is actually the closest relative. This is another mammal that is capable of laying eggs.
The echidna family includes 3 genera: true echidnas (lat. Tachyglossus), vipers (lat. Zaglossus) and the now extinct genus Megalibgwilia. Prochidnas used to have 3 species, but now only 1 remains. Among the true echidnas, the Australian (lat. Tachyglossus aculeatus) and the Tasmanian (lat. Tachyglossus setosus) are distinguished.
Australian echidna (lat. Tachyglossus aculeatus) Already from the name of the animal we can learn about its habitat. In addition to Australia, Tachyglossus aculeatus is found in Tasmania, New Guinea, and also on small islands in Bass Strait. Australian echidnas can live in almost any part of the mainland, regardless of the landscape. Their home can become like rain forests, and dry areas, both mountains and plains. Even in cities they are not that uncommon.
Habitat of the Australian echidna True, echidnas do not tolerate heat and cold well because they do not have sweat glands. IN hot weather they become lethargic, and when low temperatures hibernate, which can last 4 months. During this period, they use up their subcutaneous fat reserves.
Externally, the Australian echidna, like the Tasmanian echidna, resembles big hedgehog with an elongated muzzle like an anteater. Its entire body, except for the abdomen and muzzle, is strewn with many sharp and hard needles. The head is covered with thick hairs.
The length of this animal does not exceed 45 centimeters, and its weight does not exceed 5 kg. It is difficult to understand where the head ends and the body begins, since the neck is very short, which is a definite advantage for the echidna. She, like a hedgehog, curls up into a ball in case of danger, exposing huge 5-6-centimeter needles to the enemy.
Echidna curled up in a ball At the same time, she tries to cover the only vulnerable spot on the body - the abdomen. For greater safety, the echidna can literally dig a small depression in the ground with its clawed front paws in just a minute. There she hides her muzzle and the front part of her body. When trying to pull it out of there, the echidna is securely fastened with its claws and needles to the walls of the pit, and therefore it will take a lot of effort to carry out this action.
The elongated muzzle is a modified “beak”, adapted for catching insects living in narrow crevices and burrows. In most cases, these are ants, which can be easily pulled out with a long sticky tongue, earthworms and other insects. The echidna's tongue can make up to 100 movements per minute. She doesn't have real teeth. The horny teeth located on the back of the tongue help it grind food.
Echidnas love to eat well and eat a lot. To do this, they can walk quite long distances without stopping and resting, which can reach 10-15 kilometers a day.
Like the platypus, the echidna’s “beak” is covered with special electroreceptors that allow it to detect the slightest fluctuations in the electric field of another animal. This feature is not observed in any other mammal.
The echidna's powerful claws are an excellent digging tool. Thanks to them, the animal easily creates a gap in the strong walls of termite mounds and anthills. Using elongated claws on their hind legs, echidnas clean their “spiny coat.”
Their eyesight is poor, but their hearing is excellent. But during night forays for food, they rely more on their sense of smell.
Echidnas are loners by nature. They unite in groups only at the beginning of the mating season, and then scatter again. They do not protect their territory and do not build permanent shelters. Echidnas are free and free to travel wherever they please. Any secluded place will suit them for sleep and rest, be it a hole between the roots of trees, a crevice between stones, hollows of fallen trees, etc.
They move a little awkwardly. But they swim very well. Echidnas are able to swim across small bodies of water.
Reproduction of echidnas is a separate matter. With the onset of the mating season, a small group consisting of several males begins to form around one female. For some time they feed together and move from place to place. After 4 weeks of courtship, the struggle for the female begins, in which there will be only one winner.
After mating, the female goes to build a brood chamber, where 3-4 weeks after mating she lays a single egg 15-17 mm long and weighing 1.5 g. This is where the fun begins.
For a long time, scientists could not understand how the egg ends up in the brood pouch, since the female cannot roll it there with either her mouth or paws. The answer was found only in 2003 after a 12-year study of the behavior and life of echidnas in nature.
It turned out that before laying, the females begin to form a small fold in the area of the expected location of the future brood pouch. The female deftly curls up into a ball while laying an egg. In the area of the fold, a special sticky secretion begins to secrete, which attaches the egg to the stomach, and then the fold around it begins to gradually stretch.
Baby echidna After 10 days of “hatching”, a tiny baby emerges from the egg, 15 mm long and weighing 0.5 g. It is blind, naked, the hind legs are practically undeveloped, but on the front legs you can already see tiny fingers. Then it slowly moves to the front of the pouch, where the pores that secrete milk are located.
With the onset of spine growth (at about 2 months of age), the mother removes the baby from her pouch, builds a separate chamber for it and leaves it. True, not completely, once every 5-7 days she comes to feed him milk. This continues until 5-6 months of age, after which young echidnas begin independent life and go on their journey called “life”.
Echidnas are long-lived. In nature, their age can reach 16 years, and when kept in a zoo - 45 years.
These animals are not endangered. Perhaps because they are of little use to humans, and natural enemies such as dingoes, foxes or monitor lizards cannot cause serious damage to their numbers.
The echidna can be found not only in nature, but also on the Australian 5-cent coin, as well as on postage stamps.