Rattlesnake: Australia's most amazing animal. Australian echidna Pictured is an echidna with a tiny egg

The echidna is an oviparous mammal from the family Tachyglossidae order Monotremata(single-treme). It is characterized by a stocky body that is covered in coarse hair and spines, short legs with heavily clawed toes, a vestigial tail, and a toothless jaw with a long and sticky tongue.

photo: Wayne Butterworth

It is often thought that the echidna has family ties with the porcupine because of their external resemblance. The echidna's diet consists mainly of ants and termites; very rarely it eats other insects and small animals. They live in New Guinea and Australia (including the island of Tasmania). The size of the territory that the echidna occupies directly depends on the amount of food.

photo:Brickwielder

Despite its very dangerous spines, the echidna is prey for a variety of birds and mammals, such as foxes, wild dogs and Tasmanian devils, and therefore occupies a corresponding place in the food chain. Additionally, indigenous peoples and early European settlers used echidnas as a food source. They also fight ants and termites.

photo: Charlie Price

Echidnas are monotremes, meaning they represent one of the three main divisions of mammals. The remaining two groups, marsupials and placentals, give birth to live young. The physiological difference between monotremes and other mammals is that their reproductive, urinary and other systems are located in the same canal, the cloaca. Other female mammals have separate openings for reproduction, urination, and defecation. Like other mammals, echidnas are warm-blooded, with high speed metabolism (although not as high as others).

photo:Laurence Barnes

The elongated and thin snout of the echidna has functions of both the oral cavity and the nose. With the help of their strong limbs and large claws, they easily dig the ground in search of food, and collect prey with their tongue.

photo:Georgie Brooke

The female echidna lays a single soft-shelled egg twenty-two days after mating and stores it directly in her pouch. This incubation takes ten days. The baby remains in the mother's pouch for 45-50 days, at which time it begins to develop spines.

History of the study

The Australian echidna was first described in the city by the English zoologist George Shaw (he also described the platypus a few years later). Shaw gave it a name Myrmecophaga aculeata, mistakenly classifying this strange long-nosed animal caught on an anthill as an anteater. Ten years later, anatomist Edward Home discovered that the echidna and platypus common feature- the cloaca, into which the intestines, ureters and genital tracts open. Based on this feature, the order of monotremes was identified.

Echidna successively changed several more names - Ornithorhynchus hystrix, Echidna hystrix, Echidna aculeate until I received the current one - Tachyglossus aculeatus. Its generic name translated from Greek means “ fast language"; species - “prickly”.

Appearance and physiology

The Australian echidna is smaller than the echidna: its usual length is 30-45 cm, weight from 2.5 to 5 kg. The Tasmanian subspecies is somewhat larger - up to 53 cm. The echidna's head is covered with coarse hair; The neck is short, almost invisible from the outside. The ears are not visible. The echidna's muzzle is elongated into a narrow “beak” 75 mm long, straight or slightly curved. It is an adaptation to searching for prey in narrow crevices and burrows, from where the echidna reaches it with its long sticky tongue. The mouth opening at the end of the beak is toothless and very small; it does not open wider than 5 mm. Like the platypus, the echidna’s “beak” is richly innervated. Its skin contains both mechanoreceptors and special electroreceptor cells; with their help, the echidna detects weak fluctuations in the electric field that occur during the movement of small animals. No such electrolocation organ has been found in any mammal, other than the echidna and the platypus.

T. a. multiaculeatus, O. Kangaroo;
T.a. setosus, Tasmania and some Bass Strait islands;
T.a. acanthion, Northern Territory and Western Australia ;
T.a. aculeatus, Queensland , New South Wales and Victoria ;
T.a. lawesii, New Guinea and possibly rain forests northeast Queensland.

Lifestyle and nutrition

Echidna burrowing into the ground

This is a terrestrial animal, although if necessary it is capable of swimming and crossing fairly large bodies of water. The echidna is found in any landscape that provides it with enough food - from rain forests to dry bush and even deserts. It is found in mountainous areas, where there is snow part of the year, and on agricultural lands, and even in the suburbs of the capital. The echidna is active mainly during the day, however hot weather forces her to switch to a nocturnal lifestyle. The echidna is poorly adapted to heat because it has no sweat glands and its body temperature is very low - 30-32 °C. When it's hot or cold weather she becomes lethargic; when it gets very cold, it goes into hibernation for up to 4 months. Reserves subcutaneous fat allow her to fast for a month or more if necessary.

The echidna leads a solitary lifestyle (except during the mating season). This is not a territorial animal - echidnas that meet simply ignore each other; it does not make permanent burrows and nests. The echidna rests in any convenient place - under roots, stones, in the hollows of fallen trees. The echidna runs poorly. Its main defense is thorns; the disturbed echidna curls up into a ball, like a hedgehog, and if it has time, it partially buries itself in the ground, exposing its back to the enemy with raised needles. It is very difficult to pull an echidna out of a dug hole, since it strongly rests on its paws and spines. Predators that hunt echidnas include Tasmanian devils, as well as cats, foxes and dogs introduced by humans. People rarely pursue it, since the skin of the echidna is not valuable, and the meat is not particularly tasty. The sounds that an alarmed echidna makes resemble a quiet grunt.

Echidnas carry one of the largest fleas, Bradiopsylla echidnae, the length of which reaches 4 mm.

Reproduction

Echidnas live so secretly that their features mating behavior and reproductions were published only in the city, after 12 years of field observations. It turned out that during the courtship period, which lasts from May to September (in different parts range, the time of its onset varies), these animals keep in groups consisting of a female and several males. Both females and males at this time emit a strong musky odor, allowing them to find each other. The group feeds and rests together; when crossing, echidnas follow in single file, forming a “train” or caravan. The female walks ahead, followed by males, of which there may be 7-10. Courtship lasts up to 4 weeks. When the female is ready to mate, she lies down, and the males begin to circle around her, throwing lumps of earth aside. After some time, a real trench with a depth of 18-25 cm is formed around the female. The males violently push each other, pushing them out of the trench, until only one winning male remains inside the ring. If there was only one male, the trench is straight. Mating (on the side) lasts about an hour.

Pregnancy lasts 21-28 days. The female builds a brood burrow, a warm, dry chamber often dug under an empty anthill, termite mound, or even under a pile of garden debris near human habitation. Typically, a clutch contains one leathery egg with a diameter of 13-17 mm and weighing only 1.5 g. For a long time It remained a mystery how the echidna moves the egg from the cloaca to the brood pouch - its mouth is too small for this, and its paws are clumsy. Presumably, when putting it aside, the echidna deftly curls up into a ball; in this case, the skin on the abdomen forms a fold that secretes sticky liquid. Freezing, she glues the egg that has rolled out onto her stomach and at the same time gives the bag its shape.

Brood pouch of a female echidna

After 10 days, a tiny baby hatches: it is 15 mm long and weighs only 0.4-0.5 g. Upon hatching, it breaks the shell of the egg with the help of a horny bump on the nose, an analogue of the egg tooth of birds and reptiles. The eyes of a newborn echidna are hidden under the skin, and the hind legs are practically undeveloped. But the front paws already have well-defined toes. With their help, in about 4 hours a newborn moves from the back of the pouch to the front, where there is a special area of skin called the milk field, or areola. In this area, 100-150 pores of the mammary glands open; each pore is equipped with a modified hair. When the cub squeezes these hairs with his mouth, milk enters his stomach. The high iron content gives echidna milk its pink color.

Young echidnas grow very quickly, increasing their weight by 800-1000 times in just two months, that is, up to 400 g. The cub remains in the mother's pouch for 50-55 days - until the age when it develops spines. After this, the mother leaves him in the shelter and until the age of 5-6 months comes to feed him once every 5-10 days. In total, milk feeding lasts 200 days. Between 180 and 240 days of life, the young echidna leaves the burrow and begins to lead an independent life. Puberty occurs at 2-3 years. The echidna reproduces only once every two years or less; according to some data - once every 3-7 years. But its low reproduction rate is compensated by its long life expectancy. In nature, the echidna lives up to 16 years; The recorded longevity record at the zoo is 45 years.

Population status and conservation

Echidnas tolerate captivity well, but do not reproduce. It was possible to obtain offspring of the Australian echidna only in five zoos, but in none of the cases did the young live to adulthood.

International scientific name

Tachyglossus aculeatus (Shaw, )

Area Security status Geochronology

Taxonomy
on Wikispecies

Images
on Wikimedia Commons

ITIS
NCBI
EOL

History of the study

The Australian echidna was first described in 1792 by the English zoologist George Shaw (he also described the platypus a few years later). Shaw gave it a name Myrmecophaga aculeata, mistakenly classifying this strange long-nosed animal caught on an anthill as an anteater. Ten years later, anatomist Edward Home discovered a common feature between the echidna and the platypus - a cloaca into which the intestines, ureters and reproductive tract open. Based on this feature, the order of monotremes was identified.

Appearance and physiology

The echidna leads a solitary lifestyle (except during the mating season). This is not a territorial animal - echidnas that meet simply ignore each other; do not make permanent burrows and nests. The echidna rests in any convenient place - under roots, stones, in the hollows of fallen trees. The echidna runs poorly. Its main defense is thorns; the disturbed echidna curls up into a ball, like a hedgehog, and if it has time, it partially buries itself in the ground, exposing its back to the enemy with raised needles. It is very difficult to pull an echidna out of a dug hole, since it strongly rests on its paws and spines. Predators that hunt echidnas include Tasmanian devils, as well as cats, foxes and dogs introduced by humans. People rarely pursue it, since the skin of the echidna is not valuable, and the meat is not particularly tasty. The sounds that an alarmed echidna makes resemble a quiet grunt.

Echidnas carry one of the largest fleas, Bradiopsylla echidnae, the length of which reaches 4 mm.

Reproduction

Echidnas live so secretly that the features of their mating behavior and reproduction were published only in 2003, after 12 years of field observations. It turned out that during the courtship period, which lasts from May to September (the time of its onset varies in different parts of the range), these animals keep in groups consisting of a female and several males. Both females and males at this time emit a strong musky odor, allowing them to find each other. The group feeds and rests together; when crossing, echidnas follow in single file, forming a “train” or caravan. The female walks ahead, followed by males, of which there may be 7-10. Courtship lasts up to four weeks. When the female is ready to mate, she lies down, and the males begin to circle around her, throwing lumps of earth aside. After some time, a real trench with a depth of 18-25 cm is formed around the female. The males violently push each other, pushing them out of the trench, until only one winning male remains inside the ring. If there was only one male, the trench is straight. Mating (on the side) lasts about an hour.

Pregnancy lasts 21-28 days. The female builds a brood burrow, a warm, dry chamber often dug under an empty anthill, termite mound, or even under a pile of garden debris near human habitation. Usually in a clutch there is one leathery egg with a diameter of 13-17 mm and weighing only 1.5 g. For a long time, it remained a mystery how the echidna moves the egg from the cloaca to the brood pouch - its mouth is too small for this, and its paws are clumsy. Presumably, when putting it aside, the echidna deftly curls up into a ball; in this case, the skin on the abdomen forms a fold that secretes sticky liquid. Freezing, she glues the egg that has rolled out onto her stomach and at the same time gives the bag its shape.

After 10 days, a tiny baby hatches - a puggle: it is 15 mm long and weighs only 0.4-0.5 g. When hatching, the puggle breaks the shell of the egg with the help of a horny bump on the nose, an analogue of the egg tooth of birds and reptiles. The eyes of a newborn echidna are hidden under the skin, and the hind legs are practically not developed. But the front paws already have well-defined toes. With their help, in about 4 hours a newborn moves from the back of the pouch to the front, where there is a special area of skin called the milk field, or areola. In this area, 100-150 pores of the mammary glands open; each pore is equipped with a modified hair. When the cub squeezes these hairs with his mouth, milk enters his stomach. The high iron content gives echidna milk its pink color.

Echidnas tolerate captivity well, but do not reproduce. It was possible to obtain offspring of the Australian echidna only in five zoos, but in none of the cases did the young live to adulthood.

Echidna- a unique creation of nature. It's really true! The origin of these unique animals has been studied very superficially and many questions about their life are controversial and are still considered open.

By appearance The echidna looks like a hedgehog or, it also has almost the entire body covered with needles;
the echidna lays eggs to continue its kind, which in to a greater extent characteristic of birds;
she carries her offspring in a special bag, just as kangaroos do;
but she eats in the same way as.
with all this, echidna cubs feed on milk and belong to the class of mammals.

Therefore, they often talk about the echidna as a “bird beast”. Look at photo of echidna, and much will become clear at just one glance. What kind of special creation is this, who is this viper?

Echidna and platypus belong to one order, which are known as monotremes (single-tremes). In nature, there are 2 varieties of echidna:

spiny (Tasmanian, Australian)
woolly ( New Guinea)

The surface of the body is covered with needles, the length of which is about 6 centimeters. The color of the needles varies from white to dark brown, so the color of the animal is uneven.

In addition to needles, the echidna has brown fur, which is quite coarse and tough. The coat is especially thick and quite long in the parotid area. In terms of size, the echidna is a small animal, about 40 centimeters.

Pictured is a woolly echidna

The head is small in size and almost immediately merges with the body. The muzzle is long and thin, and it ends in a small mouth - a tube, which is often called a beak. The echidna has a long and sticky tongue, but it has no teeth at all. In general, the beak helps the animal navigate in space, since vision is very poor.

The echidna moves on four legs; they are small in size, but very strong and muscular. She has five toes on each paw, which end in strong claws.

This unique miracle nature, like , can curl up and turn into a prickly ball. If there is some source of danger or threat to life nearby, then the echidna buries itself in the loose soil with half of its body and puts out its needles as protection so that the enemy cannot get close to it.

Often you have to escape from danger by running away, here strong paws come to the rescue, which provide fast movement to a safe shelter. In addition to being a good runner, the echidna can also swim well.

Character and lifestyle of the echidna

Echidna lives in Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. The life of the echidna was first described by Georg Shaw in 1792, and it was from that time that observation of this animal began. However, echidnas are quite secretive and do not like interference in their lives, which greatly complicates study and research.

Not in vain word“snide” means insidious. Yes and animal echidna insidiously and carefully, does not allow intrusion into his life. Australian echidnas prefer to lead night look life.

They live mainly in forests or areas with dense vegetation, where the animal feels protected under the cover of foliage and plants. The echidna can hide in thickets, tree roots, crevices in rocks, small caves, or in holes that are dug and.

The animal spends the hottest hours of the day in such shelters; with the onset of evening, when the coolness is already well felt, echidnas begin to lead an active life.

However, with the onset of cold weather, the animal’s life seems to slow down and for some time they can go into hibernation, although in general the echidna does not belong to the class of animals sleeping in winter. This behavior of the echidna is associated with the absence of sweat glands, so it does not adapt well to different temperatures.

With a significant change in temperature, the animal becomes lethargic and inactive, sometimes completely inhibiting the process of vital activity. The reserve of subcutaneous fat provides the necessary nutrition to the body for long time, sometimes this can last about 4 months.

The photo shows an echidna in a defensive pose.

Reproduction and lifespan

The breeding period, the so-called mating season, occurs during the Australian winter, which lasts from May to September. At other times, echidnas live alone, but with the onset of winter they gather in small groups, which usually consist of one female and several males (usually there are up to 6 males in one group).

The so-called dating period lasts for about a month, when the animals feed and live together in the same territory. After which the males move on to the stage of courtship of the female. This is usually manifested by the animals sniffing each other and poking their noses at the tail of the only female representative of their group.

When the female is ready to mate, the males surround her and begin a kind of wedding ritual, which consists of circling and digging a trench about 25 centimeters around the female.

The photo shows an echidna with a tiny egg.

When everything is ready, the battles begin for the title of the most worthy, the males push each other out of the trench. The only one who will defeat everyone and mate with the female.

About 3-4 weeks after mating has occurred, the female is ready to lay an egg. Moreover, the echidna always lays only one egg. The echidna's pouch appears only at this time, and then disappears again.

The egg is the size of a pea and is placed in the mother's pouch. How exactly this process occurs is still debated by scientists. After about 8-12 days, the baby is born, but for the next 50 days from the moment of birth, it will still be in the pouch.

Pictured is a baby echidna

The mother echidna then finds a safe place where she leaves her baby and visits it about once a week to feed it. Thus another 5 months pass. Then the time comes when echidna children ready for independent adult life and no longer needs maternal care and care.

The echidna is capable of reproducing no more often than once every two years, or even less often, but its natural life expectancy is approximately 13-17 years. This is considered a fairly high figure. However, there have been cases when echidnas in the zoo lived up to 45 years.

Echidna food

The echidna's diet includes termites, small worms, and sometimes baby fish. To get food, the echidna digs up an anthill or termite mound, rips off the bark of trees where insects hide, moves small stones under which worms can usually be found, or simply combs through it with its nose. forest floor from leaves, moss and small branches.

As soon as the prey is found, business begins long tongue, to which the insect or sticks. To crush prey, the echidna lacks teeth, but it digestive system it is designed in such a way that it has special keratin teeth that rub against the palate.

This is how the process of “chewing” food occurs. In addition, grains of sand, small pebbles and earth enter the echidna’s body, which also help grind food in the animal’s stomach.

Oviparous - belong to the class mammals, subclass cloacal. Among all known vertebrates, monotremes are the most primitive mammals. The detachment received its name due to the presence of a special characteristic among its representatives. Oviparous animals have not yet adapted to viviparity and lay eggs to reproduce offspring, and after the babies are born, they feed them with milk.

Biologists believe that monotremes emerged from reptiles, as an offshoot from a group of mammals, even before the birth of marsupials and placentals.

The platypus is a representative oviparous species

Structure of the skeleton of the limbs, head, organs circulatory system, the breath of primal beasts and reptiles is similar. In the fossils Mesozoic era remains of oviparous animals have been identified. Monotremes then inhabited the territory of Australia, and later occupied the South American expanses and Antarctica.

Today, the first beast can be found only in Australia and the islands located nearby.

Origin and diversity of mammals. Oviparous and true animals.

The ancestors of mammals are the reptiles of the Paleozoic. This fact confirms the similarity in the structure of reptiles and mammals, especially at the stages of embryogenesis.

In the Permian period, a group of theriodonts formed - the ancestors of modern mammals. Their teeth were placed in the recesses of the jaw. Most animals had a bony palate.

However, the conditions environment, formed in the Mesozoic era, contributed to the development of reptiles and they became the dominant group of animals. But the Mesozoic climate soon changed dramatically and reptiles were unable to adapt to the new conditions, and mammals occupied the main niche of the animal world.

The class of mammals is divided into 2 subclasses:

Subclass Primordial or Monotreme;
subclass Real animals.

Real animals and monotremes share a number of characteristics: a hairy or spiny outer covering, mammary glands, and a hard palate. Also, primal beasts have common characteristics with reptiles and birds: the presence of a cloaca, laying eggs, and a similar skeletal structure.

Order Monotremes - general characteristics

Echidna is a representative of monotremes

Oviparous animals are not large sizes with a body flattened from top to bottom, short limbs with large claws and a leathery beak. They have small eyes and a short tail. Oviparous animals do not have a developed external auricle.

Only representatives of the duckbill family have teeth and they look like flat plates equipped with protrusions along the edges. The stomach is intended only for storing food; the intestines are responsible for digesting food. Salivary glands very developed, large in size, the stomach passes into the cecum, which, together with the urogenital sinus, flows into the cloaca.

First beasts do not have a real uterus and placenta. Reproduction by laying eggs, they contain little yolk, and the shell contains keratin. The mammary glands have many ducts that open on the ventral side in special glandular fields, since monotremes do not have nipples.

Body temperature can vary: it does not rise above 36°C, but with significant cold weather it can drop to 25°C. Echidnas and platypuses do not make sounds because they lack vocal cords. The lifespan of echidnas is about 30 years, platypuses - about 10. They inhabit forests, steppes with shrubs and are even found in mountainous areas (at an altitude of up to 2500m).

Representatives of oviparous species have poisonous glands. On the hind limbs there is a bone spur through which a poisonous secretion flows. The poison is potent; in many animals it provokes disruption of the functioning of vital organs; it is also dangerous for humans - it causes severe pain and extensive swelling at the site of injury.

Catching and hunting for representatives of the detachment is prohibited, as they are listed in the Red Book due to the threat of extinction.

Platypus and Echidna

The platypus and echidna are oviparous mammals, the only representatives of the order.

A small animal about 30-40cm long (body), tail part up to 15cm, weighing 2kg. Males are always larger than females. It lives near bodies of water.

Five-fingered limbs are well adapted for digging the ground; on the coast, platypuses dig holes for themselves about 10 meters in length, arranging them for later life(one entrance is underwater, the other is a couple of meters above the water level). The head is equipped with a beak, like a duck’s (hence the name of the animal).

Platypuses stay in the water for 10 hours, where they obtain food: aquatic vegetation, worms, crustaceans and mollusks. Swimming membranes between the toes on the front legs (almost undeveloped on the hind legs) allow the platypus to swim well and quickly. When the animal dives underwater, the eyes and ear openings close, but the platypus can navigate the water thanks to sensitive nerve endings on its beak. It even has electroreception.

Platypuses carry their young for a month and produce from one to three eggs. First, the female incubates them for 10 days, and then feeds them with milk for about 4 months, and at the age of 5 months, the platypuses, already capable of independent life, leave the hole.

Oviparous mammals also include echidna, found in forests, similar in appearance to a hedgehog. To obtain food, the echidna digs the ground with powerful claws and, with the help of a long and sticky tongue, obtains the necessary food (termites, ants).

The body is covered with spines, which protect it from predators; when danger approaches, the echidna curls up into a ball and becomes inaccessible to enemies. The female weighs approximately 5 kg, and lays an egg weighing 2 g. The echidna hides the egg in a pouch formed by a leathery fold in the abdominal area and carries it, warming it with its warmth, for two weeks. A newborn calf is born with a weight of 0.5 g and continues to live in the mother’s pouch, where it is fed with milk.

After 1.5 months, the echidna leaves the pouch, but continues to live in the hole under the protection of its mother. After 7-8 months, the baby is able to find food on his own and differs from the adult only in size.