I love the echidna. I did a science project on it in 5th grade. My mom helped me do a clay sculpture of it and I remember having a blast putting in all the “spines”. Was also an avid og sonic the hedgehog player so it seemed like these little guys were everywhere during that time.
They are super cute and I always get a kick whenever I see one on a walk. No idea why they are named after "the mother of monsters", early Europeans must have been on another planet
Haha, yes I thought so but my experience on hn is any humor gets misread so just felt like I needed to clarify in case anyone thought I was a monster who goes around punting monotremes.
Here in Tasmania I've stopped a few times to shoo them off the road, most effective way to date has been to wrap a towel around one and drag it. They don't seem to enjoy that very much at all, but I figure they enjoy being driven over less.
> The evolutionary marvel mates in love trains, can swim in the ocean, and even uses jazz hands as a defensive tactic.
This strapline is bound to generate some... interesting Knuckles fan art.
I had the good fortune of seeing a female echidna, licking honey from a bowl held by a caretaker, at the Australia Zoo shortly before departing. They are truly fascinating critters, cute in their own way.
I just realized I hadn't heard/read that word - echidna - in about three decades. The downfalls of not watching TV I suppose. Looking at the pictures, they seem to be cute little critters. Wonder if it would be possible to befriend one
Was once [ignorantly] trying to help encourage an echidna to get off a busy road next to my house, but it burrowed down into the cement curb gutter. It managed to use its quills to hold onto the cement, and there was not a chance of moving it. I couldn't believe how strongly it could hold onto what I thought as smooth cement.
Last year I learned from the mainstream media that echidna penises have four glans (heads). Researchers from the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland and Monash University studied the structure. An article [0] in Melbourne Uni's magazine gives a technical overview and refers to the peer-reviewed paper [1].
They only use two at a time. The researchers speculate that two can rest while the other two are in use, outcompeting proto-echidnas with fewer glans.
On a sad note, the research studied echidnas injured in road accidents, handed in to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on the Gold Coast, that had been euthanised. I imagine the numbers available are the result of the rapid urbanisation in the area.
they are quite common in Australia, saw a few earlier this year, by the roadside just rooting around in the grass. Don't seem to be too scared of humans either, I couldn't easily stooped and picked it up. Nice lads
We found one on a track near Willoughby Falls in Sydney and it didn't seem to care about our dog either. We kept our distance obviously, but it was in no hurry as it slowly ambled off the track.
What parts of Australia? I don't think I've ever seen a wild around Queensland. Then again, I am in a bit more of an urban area. I still see possums and wallabys quite often though.
If you've just moved to Sydney, then there's a reasonably good chance of spotting them if you live outside of the city itself and walk around near bushland.
The /r/sydney subreddit is regularly full of reports of people spotting them when the Echidnas are more active during mating season.
Great article. Australia has the best animals. Even a mammal with an extremely painful venomous sting (the platypus), a pain that's not relieved by morphine.
And the Tasmanian Devil, one of the nastiest looking little creatures on 4 legs I've ever seen.
I wonder how real the "not relieved by morphine is", or what that means exactly. Looked into this a while back and only found this source [1]:
> Intravenous access was obtained and 15 mg of morphine was given slowly. Over the next five minutes very little pain relief occurred.
> [...]
> A further 7.5 mg of morphine was given intravenously 15 minutes after the
first dose, but again this produced little relief. Over the ensuing 15 minutes a further 7.5 mg of morphine was injected intravenously, which eventually reduced the pain to a tolerable level.
> Once deposited into a hessian sack for processing, devils tend to sit very still and let you do anything with them, including opening their mouth to check for devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) – all while wide awake and not anaesthetised! Every single person who has witnessed this incredibly calm, still behaviour from wild devils has been astounded at how easy they are to handle, how relaxed they appear lying on the biologists’ lap, and how biologists still have all their fingers after opening the devil’s mouth wide like a dentist!
Yeah, I recently listened to a researcher on one podcast or another who was saying this same thing.
I'm willing to bet all adult mammals will exhibit similar behaviour in the right circumstances for them, they had to have been capable of being passive and calm in order for their mothers not to kill them.
Wtf is this doing on obscura? You are acting like they are extinct or extremely rare. They are very common in certain areas. They are fun to flip over.
Sure, we have come across them within a kilometre from my home. But 99.9% of the world don't live where echidnas are, and they have very distinct anatomy and habits
