Key Facts
Class: Mamallia (Mammals)
Order: Monotremata
Family: Tachyglossidae
Genus and species:
• Tachyglossus aculeatus (short-beaked echidna)
Length : 300-450mm
Weight: 2-7kg
Life Span: Unknown in wild, up to 50 years in zoo's
Gestation: 23 days
Number of Eggs: 1 (rarely 2 or 3)
Size at Hatching: 13mm, 0.2g
Age at Maturity: 5 years
Did You Know?
• Mammals that lay eggs are called "Monotremes". There are only three types of monotremes on the planet, the Short Billed Echidna, the Long Billed Echidna and the Platypus.
• The Family name "Tachyglossidae" comes from the greek meaning "fast tongue". But it is not only fast its seriously long. It can reach up to 150mm, perfect for licking up all those termites and ants.
• To help them hatch from their egg they use a special enamel tooth that has evolved just for this job. They weigh only 0.2 grams and are the size of a jelly bean. Once hatched a baby echidna is called a "Puggle".
• The echidna can often be seen "blowing bubbles" from its nose. It does this to clean its nostrils from all the dirt that it has been digging around in search for ants. After all, would you want to use a tissue if you had all those spikes on you hands and arms?
• Echidna's are good climbers, swimmers and can bulldoze they way out of just about anything!
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An Improbable Mammal
The short-beaked echidna is found in Australia and New Guinea. The echidna, along with the platypus, belongs to the Monotremata Order of mammals. These monotremes (derived from the Greek words meaning ‘one hole') are so named, due to the fact that there is only one external opening, the cloaca, which leads to the urinary, faecal and reproductive tracks, which all join internally. Populations of echidnas  are found in vastly different climates, from the edge of deserts to snow-covered mountains to islands off the mainland of Australia. Naturally, their preferred habitat would be in an environment that provides a good supply of rotting fallen timber, which would house termites, worms, beetles and larvae. Echidnas are widespread around south-east Queensland, but worryingly many being killed or injured on the road, or due to dog, cat and other feral animal attacks. If that isn't enough to contend with there natural predators are pythons and goannas!
Echidnas are quite solitary and do not have territories to the extent of defending this area from others of their species. Their areas would be more accurately described as home ranges, which can be up to 100 hectares. They tend to meander around from food source to food source and do not have regular designated paths.
Echidnas have a small mouth, which makes it difficult sometimes at feed time, when they may have to batter their food until they can suck it in. Because these amazing animals have up to 40% of their total body weight as fat, they can go up to weeks without constant food replenishment. Blowing bubbles out of their nose is quite normal behaviour, and this works as a self-cleaning mechanism after digging in the ground for their food.
Backward Feet with Spurs!
The age of an echidna cannot be determined by size or weight, just as their sex cannot be determined by external appearance. Their body is covered with a combination of hair and spines. The rear feet on these animals actually point backwards. They have 5 toes on each foot, with claws on each. It was once thought that only males had spurs but it has now been deduced that all juveniles have spurs. Echidnas usually live for at least twelve years in captive zoo environments, and Philadelphia Zoo actually recorded one living a total of forty-nine years and five months! They don't reach sexual maturity until about five years of age and females do not reproduce every year, usually every two or three years. This is an important fact in assessing the vulnerable status of an animal.
At breeding time that is usually in winter (the male testes actually enlarge in autumn), echidna ‘trains' may be observed. This is a line of males in pursuit of the usually larger female. The males do not fight each other, but instead just push each other around until only one male remains, and he wins the prize!
An Egg Laying Mammal!
The female echidna will form a ‘pouch', really just a flap of skin, specially for the forthcoming occasion.  The gestation period is 23 days, at the end of which time she will curl up in sitting position and deposit the tiny egg, smaller than a a grape, into her newly formed pouch. This egg will hatch after ten days, helped, as with baby birds, by the little enamel egg tooth that the embryo develops for this purpose. This new little puggle will be the size of a jelly bean and weigh as little as 0.2 of a gram, but will develop rapidly. Echidnas do not have teats, but instead they have two milk patches, one on either side of their underbelly. This is one reason why orphans are quite  tricky to rear. They do learn to suck their special milk formula out of a cupped palm, digging in like a little pig!
Once the puggle reaches about a month in age, light fur begins to emerge and the pink skin begins turning grey. It is now outgrowing the pouch, so has to hang onto the hair on the mother's belly, a very vulnerable stage in the life of a puggle. While in the mother's pouch the puggle has an extremely distinctive smell. Though it has been described as resembling that of a skunk, it is actually a beautiful, unforgettable smell, almost a pungent earthy scent.
Ants Please!
At about 50 days of age, the  puggle is deposited in a burrow, and the female comes back to feed the young at intervals of 3 to 10 days. This is why echidnas should NEVER be relocated. There may be a puggle in a burrow nearby, and with the adult's sex not accurately determined, every echidna should be treated as a female! Somewhere between 6 and 8 months of age the young will be fully weaned, and the entrance of the burrow will be left open so the juvenile echidna can move out and search for its own food. Their sense of smell, along with acute hearing, and excellent vision helps them in their foraging activities.
Research has shown that echidnas actually have a large brain for their size, with certain aspects of their intelligence being compared to that of primates.
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