|
|
Echidna
Echidnas have spikes.
Echidnas live in forests.
An echidna has a long sticky tongue to catch termites and ants.
Echidnas dig into the ground if they are chased.
Animal Group
The echidna belongs to a special group of mammals called monotremes. There are only three monotremes, two of them are echidnas. The short-beaked echidna is found in Australia and the long-beaked echidna is found in New Guinea. The other monotreme is the platypus.
Diet
The echidna eats only ants and termites. It uses its long, sticky tongue to lick up ants and termites.
The Echidna's Body
An echidna is covered with hair and with sharp spines on its back and sides. The spines protect the animal from enemies.
Echidnas grow to be about 40 centimetres long. They weigh about 8 kilograms.
The echidna has a snout and a long sticky tongue. The echidna doesn't have teeth, but it has hard pads inside its mouth to grind up the ants and termites before swallowing them.
The echidna has long, sharp claws on its feet. It uses them to dig open ant and termite nests. It also uses them to dig rapidly into the ground to escape from enemies such as eagles, dingoes, and in Tasmania, the Tasmanian Devil.
Echidna Life Cycle
After mating, a female echidna digs a burrow, curls up her body, and lays one egg directly into her pouch. The egg does not have a hard shell like a bird's egg, but a rather leathery skin instead. The egg hatches in about 10 days. Inside the pouch, the baby echidna licks milk that oozes from its mother's body. When its spines start to grow, the baby leaves the pouch. The female will feed her baby until it is about 6 months old.
In the wild, an echidna can live for up to 16 years.
Find out more about echidnas here:
http://www.dpiwe.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/BHAN-5357K5?open
updated September 2006