Echidna habitat. Australian echidna (tachyglossus aculeatus). Reproduction in nature

The echidna is a rare and unique animal, until recently little studied. They are somewhat reminiscent of a hedgehog or a porcupine: they have hair in the form of needles and have the ability to curl up into a ball at any sign of danger. At the same time, the animal has one unique difference - a marsupial formation on the abdomen, which is used to carry the egg and care for the cub.

General information and origin

Animals from the echidna family belong to the class of mammals from the order Monotremes. Their origin still raises many questions. There are three known genera, one of which is considered extinct. It lives only in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and the small islands of Indonesia. They are endemic; representatives of the family are not found in other parts of the planet.

What does it look like

This is a relatively small animal, externally resembling a porcupine or a hedgehog, since the body is covered with a thick layer of hair in the form of needles up to 5–6 cm. Dimensions in length are 30 cm. The animal has 2 pairs of short, but strong and fleshy paws with large claws, which allows them to dig deep holes.

The head is a continuation of the body, there is no neck. The muzzle is beak-shaped, with a small mouth located at its tip. The animal has no teeth, so it uses the friction of the tongue against the palate to chew food. The eyes are small and have not only eyelids, but also a special nictitating membrane.

It is one of the few mammals that lay eggs

The mammal has a tail, although it is difficult to see as it is covered in spines. The animal is a monotreme, that is, all waste products (urine, sexual secretions and feces) exit through one opening - the cloaca.

Where does it live, lifestyle

These mammals spend most of their lives alone. The exception is mating season V winter months. Each individual lives in a certain territory, where it hunts and finds food. This is predominantly wooded or mountainous terrain; the animal avoids plains. They do not have permanent housing. Instead, they wander around their territory in search of food, resting in random places. The animal digs well and can swim.

The animal has excellent vision, which reacts to movement. When danger arises, it tends to hide in holes, dense thickets or crevices in rocks. If the area is open, it buries itself in the ground, leaving the upper part of its body covered with needles on the surface. When the ground is too hard, the animal curls up into a ball like a hedgehog.

Animals are more active on summer nights

These mammals have almost no natural enemies. An adult can only be eaten by wild dogs, dingoes and foxes. They try to attack it from the side of the abdomen, since there are no needles there, and unfold the “ball”. Young individuals do not yet have strong and powerful needles, so they are also hunted by other predators, for example, large monitor lizards.

What does an echidna eat?

The basis of nutrition is ants and termites, the search for which takes most of the life. Having discovered an anthill, the animal begins to dig it out, licking the ants with its sticky tongue. The long muzzle simplifies the process and also helps to dig in the ground.

The mammal mixes a lot of sand, dust, grass and dry wood into its food

Strong paws and large claws allow them to strip bark from trees or destroy termite mounds. The animal is capable of moving large stones that exceed its own weight. IN in rare cases the animal digs turf or thickets of moss, under which there may be larvae or insects.

While feeding they swallow a large number of earth and small stones. This helps you digest food better. The animal does not drink water at all.

Reproduction

Reliable data on the reproduction of these animals was obtained only in 2003 after 12 years of continuous research. The mating season for these egg-laying animals begins in May and ends in September. It is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. During the mating season, animals gather in groups of 4–5 individuals, including one female and the rest are males. To attract males, the female uses a special secretion secreted from the cloaca, with which she rubs the ground.

During the breeding season, animals walk in groups, always led by a female. They always hunt and relax together. Other individuals are not allowed in the group.

Males constantly try to court the female by nuzzling her, and after about 3-4 weeks she allows one or more males to approach her. The female lies on her back, showing her readiness. The males, in turn, begin to circle around her, digging up the ground up to 30 cm deep.

After the trench is ready, the males try to push each other out. In the end, the strongest wins, and fertilizes the female. Mating occurs on the side supine position and lasts up to 1 hour.

The duration of gestation depends on the air temperature. During the hot season, pregnancy is shorter and lasts 3–4 weeks. At the end of the period, the female lays an egg and places it in a pouch on her abdomen. This is a kind of fold designed specifically for bearing an egg.

Only five zoos in the world managed to produce offspring

After 9–10 days, the egg hatches into a baby weighing about 0.5 g and measuring no more than 15 mm. The newborn is not yet fully developed and is not adapted to life, therefore, with the help of its paws, it is secured in the upper part of the mother’s pouch, where the mammary glands are located. This area is called the “milky field”. The cub licks its mother's milk with its tongue, which, by the way, is pink.

The mother carries the puggle (the so-called baby) in a pouch for up to 2 months. During this time, it gains weight up to 400 g, which is an absolute record among all mammals in terms of growth rate. The mother herself pushes the newborn echidna out when the spines begin to grow, causing inconvenience.

Until now, scientists do not know how the female places the egg in the pouch. Her legs are too short to do this. Perhaps the animal twists itself in a special way, and the egg goes directly from the cloaca into the pouch.

However, the mother still does not abandon her cub and digs a hole for him somewhere under the roots of a tree. She visits him twice a week to feed him milk. The process continues for up to six months, until the cub becomes independent.

It is during the period of feeding the cub that the highest mortality rate is observed. Puggles are still weak and cannot stand up for themselves. As protection, they use special secretions with a pungent and unpleasant odor. In addition, teenage animals behave extremely quietly, without attracting attention to themselves.

Let's highlight a few interesting facts:

• Australian echidna was first described in 1792 by British zoologist George Shaw. He mistakenly classified it as an anteater. Ten years later, another British scientist, Edward Home, discovered a feature in the form of just one passage and created a new order, Monotremes. By the way, this also includes the platypus.
• This mammal can be confused with its close relative, the platypus. It differs from the platypus by the presence of needles and the absence of a beak. The lifestyle and habitat are also different. Platypuses are closer in characteristics to reptiles, although they are mammals.
• This animal has special receptors on its nose that help detect electromagnetic vibrations from prey or its fellows.
• They lay eggs similarly to birds, that is, through the cloaca.
• The average life expectancy in natural conditions is 15 years. In captivity, animals become long-lived, reaching an age of 40–50 years.
• The female has milk Pink colour. This is due to the high iron content.
• The male's penis has as many as 4 heads.
• Capable of licking with their tongue up to 100 times per minute.
• Fleas on an animal reach a size of 4 mm.
• When temperatures drop sharply, they go into hibernation, which can last up to several months. Subcutaneous fat is used as nutrition at this time.
• The needles are so sharp that even the slightest touch can puncture or cut human skin.
• Males have spurs on their hind legs that contain a poisonous secretion. During the entire observation period, it was not observed that the males used it in any way.
• They are kept in zoos around the world, but animals do not breed in captivity.
• The brain is primitive. However, the animal is extremely curious.
• The albino echidna occurs once in ten thousand.

The echidna is an unusual and interesting animal. It can only be found in Australia and nearby islands. The animal is not dangerous to humans and, when encountered, curls up into a ball or tries to run away into the thickets. You should not pick it up, as this can cause damage to the skin due to the sharp needles.

The echidna is a very unusual animal. It is small-feeding, eats ants, is covered with spines, and has a tongue like a woodpecker. The echidna also lays eggs.

Who is this echidna?

The echidna is not talked about in the news or written about in fairy tales. It is extremely rare to hear about this animal. This is partly due to the fact that echidnas, and more precisely places There are not many of them on Earth. Today they live only in Australia, New Guinea and some islands in Brass Strait.

Externally, the echidna is very similar to a hedgehog or. On its back there are several dozen sharp needles, which the animal can raise in case of danger. The echidna's muzzle and belly are covered with short fur. " Business card"is a long nose, which makes them relatives of another rare animal - the platypus. Echidnovae are a whole family. It includes three genera, but representatives of one of them no longer exist.

The usual body length of an echidna is 30 centimeters. Short legs are equipped with powerful claws. With their help, the animal can dig well and quickly dig holes even in hard soil. When there is no reliable shelter nearby, and danger is nearby, the echidna is able to burrow into the ground, leaving only a hemisphere with sharp spines on the surface. If necessary, echidnas can swim well and overcome long water obstacles.

Echidnas lay eggs. There is only one egg in a “clutch” and is placed in a special bag. The cub is born after 10 days and lives in the same pouch for the first month and a half. The small echidna is fed with milk, but not from the nipples, but from special pores in certain places on the body, called milk fields. After a month and a half, the mother places the cub in a prepared hole and feeds milk once every five days until the age of seven months.

Echidna lifestyle

The animal leads a solitary lifestyle, forming pairs only during the mating season. The echidna doesn't have a nest or anything like that. Any suitable place becomes a refuge and a place of rest. Leading a nomadic lifestyle, the echidna learned to see the slightest danger in advance and instantly respond to it.

The arsenal of detection means includes a keen sense of smell, excellent hearing and special receptor cells that detect changes electromagnetic field around the animal. Thanks to this, the echidna records the movements of even such tiny living organisms as ants. This ability helps not only to notice danger in time, but also to find food.

The main “dish” in the echidna’s diet is ants and termites. The long thin nose of the animal is maximally adapted for their extraction from narrow crevices, holes and holes. But main role Tongue plays a role in getting insects. The echidna’s mouth is very thin, sticky and can stretch out of its mouth to a length of up to 18 centimeters. Ants adhere to the mucous membrane and are transported into the mouth. Woodpeckers extract insects from under the bark of trees in the same way.

One more interesting fact, is the absence of teeth in the echidna. In general, there is no need to chew ants, but the animal eats more than just them. The diet also includes worms, some insects and even shellfish! To crush them, the echidna's mouth has small keratin growths that rub against the roof of the mouth. Thanks to them, food is ground and enters the stomach.

In search of food, the echidna turns over stones, stirs up fallen leaves and can even remove bark from fallen trees. With a good food supply, it accumulates a fat layer, which helps to survive a possible lack of food in the future. When times get tough, an echidna can live without food for up to a month.

The echidna animal rarely reaches a size of more than 45-50 cm. Scientists have not been able to fully understand the origin of this animal. The Australian echidna lives in the west and eastern regions of the continent. There is a subspecies of this animal that lives on the island of Tasmania. The animal’s favorite habitat is dry bush (thickets of various shrubs) on rocky or loose soils.

The echidna animal rarely reaches a size of more than 45-50 cm

The animal belongs to the group of mammals that lay eggs. Echidna is a marsupial, like many representatives Australian fauna.She is featured on many stamps issued by Australia, as well as on the Australian 5 cent coin.

This small animal in nature has only one related species, which is called the echidna. This animal is larger than the echidna, both in weight and size. This species lives on the islands of New Guinea.

Appearance

The Australian echidna has a small body, which is covered on the sides and top with spines up to 5-6 cm long. These protective devices painted in brown or white shades. Between the needles the animal grows coarse brown fur. The animal is land-dwelling, but can swim. At the same time, the Australian echidna can overcome a wide body of water.

Echidnas look funny because of their slightly bulging eyes and thin muzzle, which is about 7.5 cm long. It has an almost circular cross-section.

At the very end of this long “nose” there is a narrow, small mouth (it opens 4-5 mm), inside of which there is a long flexible tongue. It is very sticky and allows the animal to hunt various worms and insects.

The length of the tongue reaches 22-25 cm, and the echidna can throw it out of its mouth 180 mm. The animal is capable of moving its tongue at high speed - 90-100 movements per minute.

How an echidna lives (video)

The echidna has a lot of thick and long hair around its ears. The ears themselves are practically invisible. The animal's tail is small. It looks like a small protrusion at the back and is covered in needles.

The weight of the animal can be from 2 to 5 kg, and the Tasmanian species is larger than its Australian counterpart.

Polar animal arctic fox

If there is no way to hide, then the Australian echidna curls up into a ball, like an ordinary hedgehog. The animal has excellent hearing, which compensates for it poor vision. The Australian echidna can detect weak electric fields generated by the movements of insects and worms. Only the platypus and echidna have such an electric locator. Since a mammal of this species is a monotreme animal, all waste from the body exits the animal through the cloaca.

Animal lifestyle

This animal practically does not dig holes. During the day, an unusual representative of the Australian fauna likes to hide in the hollows of various trees or sleep under their roots in the voids. At night the animal goes hunting. This animal feeds on the following invertebrates:

1. It readily eats termites, tearing apart termite mounds with its claws.
2. The animal's diet includes different types ants.
3. If there are no insects mentioned above, then he can eat earthworms.

When the animal senses prey, it throws out a long, very sticky tongue from its narrow muzzle. The victim sticks to him and is then dragged into mouth opening echidnas. Each animal has its own hunting territory.

Noble Don horse: perishing treasure

The animal has a large layer of subcutaneous fat, which helps the echidna endure the cold season. During such periods, the animal hibernates. Echidnas are able to dream, but when the temperature drops environment below 20°C or increasing to values ​​​​more than 25°C, the sleep phase decreases or disappears completely.

Since an animal, when curled up into a ball in danger, cannot completely cover itself with its spines, predators such as foxes and various species wild dogs, learned to use this disadvantage of the echidna during the hunt. This greatly reduced the number of Australian mammals. The echidna cannot escape from such an enemy, so it relies only on its needles.

Reproduction in nature

The echidna, like the platypus, belongs to rare species oviparous mammals. The mating season begins in winter, before which the animals live almost alone. Echidna reproduction occurs with the help of eggs. Mating dance The males begin by circling the female and throwing out the ground with their claws. Therefore, a trench is formed around the female echidna, the depth of which can reach 20-25 cm. The males begin to push each other out of the resulting hole. The female goes to the one who remains inside.

21-30 days after copulation, the female lays a soft-shelled egg, which she carefully places in the abdominal pouch. The dimensions of this egg are comparable to the dimensions of a pea. Scientists have not yet been able to figure out how the female attaches it to her pouch.

She incubates the egg for about 10 days. After the baby appears, the mother feeds it milk. It is released from special pores that are located in the milk field. This species of animals does not have nipples. A baby echidna licks the food mixture. He lives in his mother's pouch for 1.5-2 months. After this, its needles begin to form and grow, so it leaves the pouch. The mother digs a mink for her offspring, where he lives until the age of 7 months. Every 5 days, the female returns to the calf to feed him milk. After this, the young animal leaves the hole and begins to lead an independent lifestyle.

Mammal, bird or reptile? If you mix their signs and shake them well, you get the symbol of Australia. It seems like this amazing creature not survive in real conditions. But the echidna does it perfectly!

Eggs: almost like a bird

The echidna is covered with fur, which means it is a mammal. And all mammals are viviparous - at least, scientists were sure of this until 1884, when the Scottish naturalist William Caldwell personally took the egg out of her pouch! To do this, he spent many weeks on the banks of the Burnett River, forcing the aborigines to catch strange animals.

Most likely, fellow scientists would not have believed Caldwell, thinking that he had overheated in the hot Australian sun. But at the same time as the Scot, evidence that echidnas are absolutely incredible animals was discovered by the curator of the South Australian Museum, William Haake. While examining the corpse of an echidna, he found an egg inside it. And these were not the remains of a eaten bird or lizard, but an unborn baby viper.

Echidna eggs are more like reptile eggs

Bag: almost like a kangaroo

The mammal echidna not only lays eggs, like a bird or reptile, but also carries its young in a pouch - just like a kangaroo. The pouch appears before the egg is laid, and when the baby grows up, it smooths out and disappears. While the rest of the Australian warm-blooded animals were choosing which was more profitable - an egg or a bag, the echidna took both.

The cub lives in the pouch for a month and a half, until its needles begin to prick. Then the mother digs a hole or builds a nest, transplants the baby there, feeds it one last time and goes about her business. He returns after five days, feeds him and leaves again for almost a week. A real mother echidna. After six months, she completely stops visiting the cub, and the young animal goes out into an independent life.

Relative to their body size, echidnas have an incredibly developed “smart” part of the brain, the neocortex.

Australian echidnas live not only in Australia, but also in the south of New Guinea

Milk: almost like a cat

The female echidna produces milk, but does not allow the baby to suck it. The animal simply does not have nipples: milk is secreted directly through the skin of the two milk zones in the pouch, and the baby licks it from the fur. The echidna tries to prevent the baby from starving, and during the lactation period it intensively searches for food - it makes forays after it. And although the baby increases his weight 60 times in 60 days, he often cannot cope with his mother’s lunches, and excess milk pours directly into the bag.

Echidna milk is very nutritious, and any bacteria would happily multiply in it. Pathogenic microbes are deadly for small echidnas, which are born with an underdeveloped immune system. To prevent trouble, the mother echidna’s body has learned to produce special antimicrobial proteins. Experiments by Australian scientists show that they suppress the growth of even such tenacious bacteria as Staphylococcus aureus. The milk of other mammals also contains protective proteins, but echidnas have a larger set of them and they are much more “vigorous.”

Echidnas have serious enemies - dogs and cars

Strength: almost like a bear

The little echidna is an incredibly strong animal for its size. Her funny paws break anthills like shortbread. And thanks to its thick claws, the animal easily destroys termite mounds in order to feast on tasty insects.

And with the help of its powerful front paws, the echidna excellently digs shelters. If you put a man with a shovel next to him, the Australian miracle beast will easily outrun him. The hole is the echidna’s favorite way to hide from enemies: dingoes, cats and foxes. The animal burrows into the ground and curls up so that only sharp spines remain sticking out. It is almost impossible to get an echidna from such a “dugout.”

Longevity: almost human-like

In nature it works general rule: the smaller the animal, the shorter it is life path. But although the largest echidnas weigh a maximum of 6 kg, in captivity these creatures live up to half a century. Scientists suggest that the secret to the incredible longevity of echidnas is their slow metabolism, which the animals inherited from their direct reptilian ancestors.

The body temperature of echidnas does not rise above 32 °C, this is an absolute record among all mammals. But animals also tolerate 28 °C without any problems - unlike people who, when their body temperature changes by a couple of degrees, can only lie in bed and moan. In the cold months, echidnas even “cool down” to 4 °C and take a breath once every three minutes. It will not be possible to run and look for food in this state, so echidnas hibernate.

World's largest fleas found in echidna fur

Sex: like no other

The echidna is a self-sufficient loner and only meets with another echidna to make a new echidna. But even here, Australian animals chose a special path. The male's penis is seven centimeters. Twice as much as a gorilla! It is covered with spines to stimulate the release of the egg and has four heads. True, when mating, the male uses only two, and presses the remaining ones, because the female’s vagina is “only” double.

In anticipation of copulation, males line up and follow the female in a crowd, and she chooses someone to her taste. Then someone else, then another. Males do not give up trying to mate, even if the chosen one has fallen into hibernation: often the echidna wakes up already pregnant. To tame competitors, males have special spurs on their hind legs. For the sake of sex, cold echidnas “heat up” by several degrees during the mating season - this “trick” is left over from reptiles. Scientists have even hypothesized that warm-bloodedness is the love fever of our reptilian ancestors, which has remained with us forever.

Echidna spines are modified hair

The echidna is an unusual animal even for Australia. A huge number of other living beings choose some niche for themselves and adapt specifically to it. Echidna took a different route: she decided to take everything at once, that is, adapt to any conditions. And she succeeded: this is the only native Australian animal that managed to occupy the entire continent. Sometimes a lack of modesty turns out to be a virtue.

Photo: ALAMY /LEGION-MEDIA(X4), MINDEN PICTURES / FOTODOM.RU, ISTOCK, IUCN (INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE). 2017. THE IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES. VERSION 3.1, DIOMEDIA, VMENKOV (CCBY-SA 3.0)

The echidna animal is a funny animal. From Greek it sounds like "hedgehog". The resemblance to its prickly counterpart is striking. But the real relative is the platypus, in the family Monotremes.

As you understand, the echidna is completely covered with needles, with the exception of the abdominal part and sides. The needles change from yellow to dark, reaching up to 10 cm.

The skin color is brown. It weighs a little more than a domestic dog, around 7 kg, and is 50 cm long. The body is clumsy, and the head is disproportionately small.

The echidna's muzzle is elongated due to its long tube-shaped nose, similar to a proboscis. The eyes are small and black, the tail is about a centimeter and is not visible upon examination. The genitourinary system and intestines are connected to the cloaca. The limbs are developed, there are claws on the front for ease of hunting and digging, and on the back the second fingers are elongated and have a thin bend in order to comb out the fur between the needle-like hairs.

These are endemic, that is, they can be found on the Australian continent, the islands of Tasmania, New Guinea and in the Bass Strait area. They like moderate or dry climates. You can meet the echidna in forests, deserts, thickets, and gorges. She has no sweat glands, the temperature is lowered to 35 degrees, in sleep mode up to 5. Therefore, she can live in hot conditions.

A significant period of daylight hours Australian echidna sleeps, hunts at night. To do this, she digs holes in the bushes with her powerful paws. It has been noticed that it is often near or occupied by rabbits. In winter it can hibernate for 4 months; it always tries to hide in the shade in summer.

In search of food, food lovers can travel up to 15 km. They feed mainly on ants and termites. This process is fascinating, since nature has deprived them of teeth.

The echidna, a marsupial animal, throws out a tongue up to 16 cm long with a sticky consistency and captures food. Special toothed processes on it and the palate allow it to crush food. Manipulations occur quickly, up to 100 times per minute; she is adapted to throw out her weapon.

Despite its solitary existence, the animal breeds once a year, starting in May. The female rubs against the ground, leaving a strong musky aroma, attracting males. Up to a dozen individuals follow the same train for weeks. After mating, the female echidna leaves and lays one egg.

It is curious that before the egg is laid, the fur rolls down on the animal’s belly, secreting a sticky secretion, so the fragile testicle is glued to the body and is kept in a kind of pouch. The cub will leave her at two months.

The newborn feeds on milk, which seeps out on the skin of the abdomen, since mother nature did not intend for this mammal to have a nipple. Then, leaving the offspring, the echidna visits them 1-2 times within seven days, the rest of the time they spend in the mink.

Enemies

Earlier Australian echidna were actively exterminated by people for food. Main predators:

• Tasmanian devil;
• Dingo dogs;

In case of danger, the echidna quickly buries itself in the sand, pushing only spines to the surface or curls up into a ball like a hedgehog.

These are the only animals of their class that have electroreceptors on their beaks that can catch magnetic fields other brothers, prey.

As you have already noticed, the echidna is a mammal that lays eggs. The brain is primitive, but in addition to searching for edible insects, it can be distracted by unusual objects, if compared with the same platypus.

The echidna lives for 13 years, and lives well in captivity, but does not have broods. In one zoo, a centenarian was recorded who crossed the 40-year mark. To preserve the population, extermination is excluded, and two of them (short-beaked, long-beaked) have been added to the Red Book.