Where was the first echidna discovered? Oviparous mammal: description, features, reproduction and types

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, 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. Echidna milk has a high iron content pink.

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. Get offspring Australian echidna succeeded in only five zoos, but in none of the cases did the young live to adulthood.

2 families: platypus and echidnaidae
Habitat: Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea
Food: insects, small aquatic animals
Body length: from 30 to 80 cm

Subclass oviparous mammals represented by only one order - monotremes. This order unites only two families: platypuses and echidnas. Monotremes- the most primitive living mammals. They are the only mammals that, like birds or reptiles, reproduce by laying eggs. Oviparous animals feed their young with milk and are therefore classified as mammals. Female echidnas and platypuses do not have nipples, and the young lick milk secreted by tubular mammary glands directly from the fur on the mother's belly.

Amazing animals

Echidnas and platypuses- the most unusual representatives of the class of mammals. They are called monotremes because both the intestines and the bladder of these animals open into one special cavity - the cloaca. Two oviducts in monotreme females also exit there. Most mammals do not have a cloaca; this cavity is characteristic of reptiles. The stomach of oviparous animals is also amazing - like a bird's crop, it does not digest food, but only stores it. Digestion occurs in the intestines. These strange mammals even have a lower body temperature than others: without rising above 36°C, it can drop to 25°C depending on environment like reptiles. Echidnas and platypuses are voiceless - they do not have vocal cords, and toothless - only young platypuses have teeth that quickly decay.

Echidnas live up to 30 years, platypuses - up to 10. They live in forests, steppes overgrown with bushes, and even in the mountains at an altitude of up to 2500 m.

Origin and discovery of oviparous

Short fact
Platypuses and echidnas are venom-bearing mammals. They have a bone spur on their hind legs, along which poisonous liquid flows. This poison causes in most animals imminent death, and the person has severe pain and swelling. Among mammals, besides the platypus and echidna, only representatives of the order of insectivores are poisonous - the slittooth and two species of shrews.

Like all mammals, oviparous animals trace their origins to reptile-like ancestors. However, they separated from other mammals quite early, choosing their own path of development and forming a separate branch in the evolution of animals. Thus, oviparous animals were not the ancestors of other mammals - they developed in parallel with them and independently of them. Platypuses are more ancient animals than echidnas, which descended from them, modified and adapted to a terrestrial lifestyle.

Europeans learned about the existence of oviparous animals almost 100 years after the discovery of Australia, at the end of the 17th century. When the skin of a platypus was brought to the English zoologist George Shaw, he decided that he was simply being played, the sight of this bizarre creature of nature was so unusual for Europeans. And the fact that the echidna and platypus reproduce by laying eggs has become one of the greatest zoological sensations.

Despite the fact that the echidna and platypus have been known to science for quite some time, these amazing animals still present zoologists with new discoveries.

Wonder Beast platypus as if assembled from parts of different animals: its nose is like a duck’s beak, its flat tail looks like it was taken from a beaver with a shovel, its webbed feet look like flippers, but are equipped with powerful claws for digging (when digging, the membrane bends, and when walking, it folds, without interfering with free movement). But despite all the seeming absurdity, this animal is perfectly adapted to the lifestyle that it leads, and has hardly changed over millions of years.

At night the platypus hunts for small crustaceans, mollusks and other small aquatic life. Its tail-fin and webbed paws help it dive and swim well. The eyes, ears and nostrils of the platypus close tightly in the water, and it finds its prey in the dark underwater with the help of its sensitive “beak”. This leathery “beak” contains electroreceptors that can detect weak electrical impulses emitted by aquatic invertebrates as they move. Reacting to these signals, the platypus quickly finds prey, fills its cheek pouches, and then leisurely eats what it has caught on the shore.

The platypus sleeps all day near a pond in a hole dug with powerful claws. The platypus has about a dozen of these holes, and each has several exits and entrances - not an extra precaution. To breed offspring, the female platypus prepares a special hole lined with soft leaves and grass - it is warm and humid there.

Pregnancy lasts a month, and the female lays one to three leathery eggs. The mother platypus incubates the eggs for 10 days, warming them with her body. Newborn tiny platypuses, 2.5 cm long, live on their mother’s belly for another 4 months, feeding on milk. The female spends most of her time lying on her back and only occasionally leaves the hole to feed. When leaving, the platypus seals the cubs in the nest so that no one will disturb them until she returns. At 5 months of age, mature platypuses become independent and leave the mother's hole.

Platypuses were mercilessly exterminated due to valuable fur, but now, fortunately, they are taken under the strictest protection, and their numbers have increased again.

A relative of the platypus, it doesn’t look like it at all. She, like the platypus, is an excellent swimmer, but she does it only for pleasure: she does not know how to dive and get food under water.

Another important difference: the echidna has brood pouch- a pocket on the belly where she places the egg. Although the female raises her cubs in a comfortable hole, she can safely leave it - the egg or newborn cub in her pocket is reliably protected from the vicissitudes of fate. At the age of 50 days, the little echidna already leaves the pouch, but for about 5 more months it lives in a hole under the auspices of a caring mother.

The echidna lives on the ground and feeds on insects, mainly ants and termites. Raking termite mounds with strong paws with hard claws, she extracts insects with a long and sticky tongue. The echidna's body is protected by spines, and in case of danger it curls up into a ball, like an ordinary hedgehog, exposing its prickly back to the enemy.

Wedding ceremony

From May to September, the echidna's mating season begins. At this time, the female echidna is using special attention males. They line up and follow her in single file. The procession is led by the female, and the grooms follow her in order of seniority - the youngest and most inexperienced close the chain. So, in company, echidnas spend a whole month, looking for food together, traveling and relaxing.

But the rivals cannot coexist peacefully for long. Demonstrating their strength and passion, they begin to dance around the chosen one, raking the earth with their claws. The female finds herself in the center of a circle formed by a deep furrow, and the males begin to fight, pushing each other out of the ring-shaped hole. The winner of the tournament receives the favor of the female.

Australian echidna is an oviparous mammal of the echidna family. This is the only representative of the genus of true echidnas.

The Australian echidna was first described in 1792 by the English zoologist George Shaw (he also described the platypus a few years later). Shaw mistakenly classified 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 tracts open. Based on this feature, the order of monotremes was identified.

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 vibrations electric field, arising from the movement of small animals. No such electrolocation organ has been found in any mammal, other than the echidna and the platypus.

The echidna's limbs are shortened. The fingers are equipped with powerful flat claws, adapted for digging the ground and breaking the walls of termite mounds. After giving birth, females develop a brood pouch on their abdomen.

The Australian echidna is found in Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and the islands of Bass Strait. Five of its subspecies are known.

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 wet forests to dry bush and even deserts. It is found in mountainous areas, where there is snow part of the year, on agricultural lands, and even in the suburbs of the capital. The echidna is active mainly during the day, but hot weather forces it to switch to night look life. The echidna is poorly adapted to heat, since it does not have sweat glands, and its body temperature is very low - 30-32 °C. In hot or cold weather it becomes lethargic; when it gets very cold, it goes into hibernation for up to 4 months. Subcutaneous fat reserves allow her to fast for a month or more if necessary.

The echidna feeds on ants, termites, and less often other insects, small mollusks and worms.

Predators that hunt echidnas include Tasmanian devils, as well as cats, foxes and dogs introduced by people. 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.

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 a pile of garden debris near human habitation. Usually there is one leathery egg in the clutch.

In nature, the echidna lives up to 16 years; The recorded longevity record at the zoo is 45 years.

The Australian echidna is common in Australia and Tasmania and is not an endangered species. It is less affected by land clearing, since the Australian echidna does not have any special requirements for its habitat, other than a sufficient amount of food. The main danger for her is t vehicles and habitat destruction, leading to habitat fragmentation. The animals brought by the colonists hunt echidnas.

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.

The Australian echidna is featured on the 5-cent coin and on the $200 commemorative coin issued in Australia in 1992. Millie the Echidna was one of the mascots of the Summer olympic games 2000 in Sydney.

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. In addition, 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.

Everyone knows from school curriculum about mammals. Did you know that the egg-laying mammal is a separate species of animal that lives only on the territory of one continent - Australia? Let's look at this special kind animals in more detail.

Discovery of oviparous

For a long time, the existence of unique animals that reproduce by incubating eggs was not known. The first report of these creatures came to Europe in the 17th century. At this time, the skin of a marvelous creature with a beak and covered with wool was brought from Australia. It was a platypus. The preserved specimen was brought only 100 years later. The fact is that platypuses practically do not tolerate captivity. It is very difficult for them to create conditions during transportation. Therefore, observations of them were carried out only in the natural environment.

Following the discovery of the platypus came news of another creature with a beak, only now it is covered in spines. This is an echidna. For a long time, scientists argued about which class to classify these two creatures into. And they came to the conclusion that the platypus and echidna should be placed in a separate detachment. This is how the order Monotremes, or Cloacae, appeared.

The Amazing Platypus

A unique creature of its kind, nocturnal. The platypus is widespread only in Australia and Tasmania. The animal lives half in water, that is, it builds holes with access to water and land, and also feeds in water. The creature is small in size - up to 40 centimeters. It has, as already mentioned, duck nose, but at the same time it is soft and covered with leather. It just looks very similar to a duck. It also has a 15 cm tail, similar to that of a beaver. The paws are webbed, but they do not prevent the platypus from walking on the ground and digging holes well.

Because genitourinary system and the animal’s intestines exit into one opening, or cloaca, it is classified as a separate species - Cloacae. Interestingly, the platypus swims, unlike common mammals, using the front paws, and the hind paws serve as a steering wheel. Among other things, let's pay attention to how it reproduces.

Platypus breeding

Interesting fact: before breeding, animals hibernate for 10 days, and only after that does the mating season. It lasts almost all autumn, from August to November. Platypuses mate in water, and after a period of two weeks, the female lays an average of 2 eggs. Males do not participate later life offspring.

The female builds a special burrow (up to 15 meters long) with a nest at the end of the tunnel. Lines it with damp leaves and stems to maintain a certain humidity so that the eggs do not dry out. Interestingly, for protection, she also builds a barrier wall 15 centimeters thick.

Only after preparatory work does she lay eggs in the nest. The platypus incubates eggs by curling up around them. After 10 days, babies are born, naked and blind, like all mammals. The female feeds the babies with milk, which flows from the pores directly along the fur into the grooves and accumulates in them. Babies lick the milk and thus feed. Feeding lasts about 4 months, and then the babies learn to get food on their own. It is the method of reproduction that gives this species the name “oviparous mammal.”

Extraordinary echidna

The echidna is also an oviparous mammal. This land creature is small in size, reaching up to 40 centimeters. It also lives in Australia, Tasmania and the islands of New Guinea. In appearance, this animal is similar to a hedgehog, but with a long narrow beak not exceeding 7.5 centimeters. Interestingly, the echidna has no teeth, and it catches prey with the help of a long sticky tongue.

The echidna's body is covered on the back and sides with spines, which are formed from coarse wool. The fur covers the belly, head and paws are fully adapted for certain type nutrition. She feasts on termites, ants and small insects. She leads a diurnal lifestyle, although she is not easy to detect. The fact is that she has a low body temperature, up to 32 degrees, and this does not allow her to tolerate a decrease or increase in ambient temperature. In this case, the echidna becomes lethargic and rests under the trees or hibernates.

Echidna breeding method

The echidna is an oviparous mammal, but this was only proven in beginning of XXI century. Interesting mating games echidna There are up to 10 males per female. When she decides she is ready to mate, she lies down on her back. At the same time, the males dig a trench around her and begin to fight for primacy. The one who is stronger copulates with the female.

Pregnancy lasts up to 28 days and ends with the appearance of one egg, which the female moves into the brood fold. It is still not clear how the female moves the egg into the pouch, but after 10 days the baby appears. The cub comes into the world not fully formed.

Young

The birth of such a baby is very similar to the birth of marsupial cubs. They also undergo final development in their mother’s pouch and leave her as adults, ready for independent life. Interesting fact: marsupial mammals also common only in Australia.

How does a baby echidna appear? He is blind and naked, his hind limbs are not developed, his eyes are covered with a leathery film, and only his front paws have digits. It takes a baby 4 hours to get to milk. Interestingly, the mother has 100-150 pores in her pouch, which secrete milk through special hairs. The baby just needs to get to them.

The baby stays in the mother's pouch for about 2 months. He gains weight very quickly due to nutritious milk. Echidna milk is the only one that has a pink color due to large quantity it contains iron. Breastfeeding continues up to 6.5 months. Afterwards, the young animals learn to get food on their own.

Prochidna

The echidna is another oviparous mammal. This creature is much larger than its fellows. Habitat is the north of New Guinea and the islands of Indonesia. The size of the echidna is impressive, up to 80 centimeters, and its weight is up to 10 kilograms. It looks like an echidna, but the beak is much longer and the needles are much shorter. It lives in mountainous areas and feeds mostly on worms. The structure of the echidna’s oral cavity is interesting: its tongue has teeth, and with the help of it it is capable of not only chewing food, but, as has been noted, even turning over stones.

This species is the least studied, as it lives in the mountains. But at the same time, it was noticed that the animal does not lose mobility in any weather, does not hibernate, and is able to regulate its own body temperature. Reproduction of oviparous mammals, which includes the echidna, occurs in the same way as in the other two species. She hatches only one egg, which is placed in a pouch on her stomach, and feeds the baby with milk.

Comparative characteristics

Now let's look at the species of mammals that live on the Australian continent. So, what is the difference between oviparous, marsupial and placental mammals? To begin with, it must be said that all mammals feed their offspring with milk. But the birth of babies has huge differences.

Oviparous animals have one common feature. They lay eggs like birds and hatch them certain time. After the birth of the offspring, the mother’s body produces milk, which the babies feed on. It should be noted that the cubs do not suck milk, but lick it from the grooves on the female’s abdomen. The absence of nipples distinguishes oviparous mammals from other mammals.

They have a brood pouch, hence their name. The pouch is located on the abdomen of females. The newborn baby, having reached it, finds the nipple and seems to hang on it. The fact is that babies are born unformed and spend several more months in their mother’s pouch until they are fully developed. It must be said that oviparous and marsupial mammals have similarities in this regard. Baby echidnas and proechidnas are also born underdeveloped and are placed in a kind of brood fold.

What about placental mammals? Their babies are born fully formed due to the presence of the placenta in the uterus. Due to it, the process of nutrition and development of the baby occurs. The bulk of animals are placental.

This is the diversity of species that exists on one continent.