Short-beaked echidna

Short -beaked Echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus )

The short -beaked echidna, also short -billed echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus ) is an egg-laying mammal in the order of monotremes and the family of echidnas ( Tachyglossidae ). It inhabits large parts of Australia and southern New Guinea.

Description

Short -beaked Echidna reach a body length 35-53 cm and a weight of 2.5 to seven kilograms. Most striking features are the yellow or yellow- black spines on the back and the flanks of the - unrelated - remember hedgehogs, and the long, tubular snout. The rest of the fur is brownish in color and may partially cover the spines.

Behavior

These animals inhabit a variety of habitats and are mainly active at dawn, outside the breeding season they are loners. Their diet consists almost exclusively of ants and termites, which they take with their long, sticky tongue and shred with horny plates on the tongue and on the palate - namely they are toothless.

After a complicated foreplay occurs in July or August for mating. About three to four weeks after the female lays one, rarely two or three eggs, which is incubated in a specially created bags on the belly further ten days. After hatching, the young animal still holds around eight weeks in the mother's pouch. As soon as its spines grow - at the age of about eight weeks ago - it leaves it and is hidden in a safe place and regularly suckle until it is about seven months old. In captive short -beaked echidna may be 50 years old.

Short -beaked Echidna are among the most widespread native Australian mammals because they are undemanding regarding their habitat and their spines have a good protection against predators.

We distinguish five subspecies:

  • T. a aculeatus in the eastern half of Australia
  • T. a Acanthion in the Northern Territory and Western Australia
  • T. a multiaculeatus on Kangaroo Island
  • T. a lawessi in New Guinea
  • T. a setosus in Tasmania

The subspecies in Tasmania is sometimes considered as a separate species.

For detailed information see the article echidna.

Genus George Shaw Australia (continent)
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