Echidna- a mammal of the oviparous order. Forms a family of the same name. There are two main types - Australian echidna and Tasmanian. They live in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea.

Echidna is a small animal, no more than 40 cm in size. The muzzle is narrow, pointed. The mouth is small. The body is covered with hair and sharp needles up to 6 cm long. The tip of the small tail is also covered with needles.

Echidnas became known to science relatively recently, at the end of the 18th century, like the closest relative of echidna - .

The main feature of the echidna and the same platypus is that they are both oviparous and mammals. The female echidna lays one egg and carries it in a brood pouch on her belly. And when a cub appears, she feeds him with milk. Milk is secreted by special mammary glands. 100-150 pores open on the body, and the cub simply sucks wool moistened with milk.

Echidna and platypus, in addition to laying eggs, have another common feature - an organ called a cloaca. The intestines, ureters and genital tract open into the cloaca. This is where the single-pass squad takes its name (sometimes it is also called the cloacal detachment).

Adult monotremes have no teeth, and body temperature can fluctuate considerably. In this they are similar to reptiles. But still, these amazing animals are considered mammals according to two most important features: the presence of mammary glands and hairline. Interestingly, both the platypus and the echidna are voiceless animals, they simply do not have vocal cords.

At first glance, the echidna resembles big hedgehog or a small porcupine, as its body is covered with quills. But there are no family ties between these animals. Echidna is found in Australia, in eastern half mainland and at its western tip, and on the island of Tasmania, preferring shrub thickets.

In New Guinea, there is a prochidna. It differs from the Australian echidna in having a longer and more curved snout and tall, three-toed limbs, as well as small external ears.

Prochidna looks like a creature from science fiction books

The size of the echidna does not exceed 30 cm. It has very strong paws, and it is able to burrow into the ground very quickly, escaping from the enemy. Another way to protect yourself is to curl up into a prickly ball, just like a hedgehog.

At night, the echidna goes in search of insects and worms. She is not averse to eating termites and ants and is quite capable of ruining an anthill. Despite their apparent clumsiness, echidnas are good swimmers.

During the mating season, females attract the attention of males, and for some time the animals coexist in groups. They move in a chain in search of food and rest together. Then, after mating fights between males, the female chooses the most “strong” cavalier.

A single echidna egg is "hatched" for 10 days in a special bag. To get out of the egg, the tiny cub breaks the shell with the help of a horny bump on the nose. The cub stays in the mother's pouch for about 50 days, until the quills begin to develop.

baby echidna

After that, the mother digs a hole for the cub, in which she leaves him, returning once every few days to feed her with milk. Thus, the young echidna is under the care of its mother until it reaches the age of seven months.

young echidna

Male echidnas have formidable weapon on the hind legs - bone sharp spikes. And those thorns are poisonous!

Among echidnas there are also albinos

In general, despite its small size, the echidna is a very strong animal. If she clings to something with her clawed paws, it is difficult to tear her off. And there are few hunters to do it.

Echidna covered with red clay (digging a hole)

Predators introduced by humans into their habitats have a negative impact on the distribution and abundance of echidnas. Great danger also represents a reduction in traditional habitats, in connection with which all species of the genus prochidna are recognized as endangered.

The echidna leads a secretive life and has not yet been sufficiently studied. In captivity, life expectancy is about 20 years.

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• Class: Mammalia Linnaeus, 1758 = Mammals
• Infraclass: Prototheria = cloacal, primitive, oviparous
• Order Monotremata Bo naparte, 1838 = Monotreme oviparous
• Family: Tachyglossidae Gill, 1872 = Echidna

Family: Tachyglossidae Gill, 1872 = Echidna

Read about the Australian echidna: ; ; ;

We have already talked more than once about the amazing animal of Australia - the platypus, a representative of the first animals, or egg-laying mammals. However, not only the platypus belongs to the subclass of the first animals, the order of monotremes, but also another, no less interesting, but much less studied animal - the echidna. The taxonomy of echidnas is pretty confusing, in some reference books it is written that there are 5 species of them. However, scientists now believe that there are only two echidnas - the pro-echidna (Zaglossus bruijni), which lives in New Guinea, and the echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus), common in Australia and Tasmania. About Australian echidna and our today's story will go.

Genus: Tachyglossus Illiger, 1811 = Echidnas

Despite the fact that the echidna is very widespread on the "fifth continent", it is one of the most mysterious Australian animals. Echidna leads such a secretive way of life that many features of the biology of this animal are not known to researchers until now.

For the first time, European scientists learned about the echidna in 1792, when a member of the Royal Zoological Society in London, George Shaw (the same one who described the platypus a few years later) compiled a description of this animal, mistakenly classifying it as an anteater. The fact is that this amazing nosy creature was caught on an anthill. The scientist did not have any other information about the biology of the animal. Ten years later, Shaw's compatriot anatomist Edward Home discovered one common feature- both of these animals have only one opening at the back leading to the cloaca. And already the intestines, and the ureters, and the genital tract open into it. Based on this feature, a detachment of monotremes (Monotremata) was singled out.

But besides the presence of a cloaca, echidnas and platypuses have one more fundamental difference from all other mammals - these animals lay eggs. So unusual way scientists discovered breeding only in 1884, when Wilhelm Haacke, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, noticed a well-developed pouch in the female of this animal, and in it a small rounded egg.

Echidna and platypus also have whole line common features, for example, in the structure of chromosomes. In monotremes, they are represented by two types - large (macrosomes), similar to the chromosomes of other mammals, and small (microsomes), similar to reptile chromosomes and not found at all in other animals.

But outwardly, the echidna and the platypus are completely different. Echidna is an animal with a body weight of 2 to 7 kg and a length of about 50 cm. Its body is covered with coarse hair and prickly needles, the length of which reaches 6-8 cm. The neck of the echidna is short, and the head ends with a long cylindrical "beak". Just like the platypus, the "beak" of the echidna is a very sensitive formation. Its skin contains both mechanoreceptor cells and special electroreceptors. They perceive weak changes in the electromagnetic field that occur during the movement of small animals - echidna prey. In no other mammals, except for the echidna and the platypus, such electroreceptors have yet been found.

The mouth opening is located in the echidna at the end of the beak. It is quite tiny, but oral cavity the animal is placed a long, up to 25 cm, sticky tongue, with the help of which the echidna successfully catches its prey.

These animals live, as we have already said, very secretly. So much so that, for example, the features of reproduction of echidnas remained unknown until very recently. Only 12 years ago, after painstaking work in the laboratory and more than ten thousand hours of observing prickly animals in nature, scientists managed to penetrate the secrets of their family life. It turned out that during the courtship period, which lasts for echidnas all winter - from mid-May to mid-September - the animals stay in groups of up to seven individuals each, feed and rest together. Moving from place to place, the animals follow each other in single file, forming something like a caravan. A female always stands at the head of the caravan, the largest of the males follows her, and the smallest and, as a rule, the youngest animal completes the chain. Out of period mating games echidnas lead a solitary life, and long time it remained a mystery how males find females during the breeding season. It turned out that chemical signals play the main role in this process - during the mating season, the animals emit a very strong musky smell.

After about a month living together the echidnas that make up the group decide to move on to more serious relationship. Increasingly, one or another male, and sometimes several, immediately begin to touch the tail of the female with their stigmas and carefully sniff her body. If the female is still not ready for mating, she curls up into a tight prickly ball, and this position cools the ardor of her cavaliers for a while. The female echidna, on the contrary, relaxes and freezes, and then the males begin to lead a kind of round dance around her, while throwing clods of earth aside. After some time, a real trench 18-25 cm deep forms around the female - for a long time people puzzled over the origin of these strange circles on Australian soil!

But back to the wedding ceremony of echidnas. At some point, the largest of the males turns his head to the one following him and tries to push him out of the trench. Pushing competitions continue until one winning male remains in the trench. Once finally alone with the female, he continues to dig the ground, trying to make the "marriage bed" more comfortable, and at the same time excites his chosen one, stroking her with his paws. Mating lasts about an hour and consists in the fact that the male presses the opening of his cloaca to the cloaca of the female, frozen in love ecstasy.

After 21-28 days after this, the female, having retired to a special brood hole, lays a single egg. It is as small as a platypus egg and weighs only about 1.5 g - like a pea! No one has ever seen an echidna move an egg from the cloaca to the bag on the stomach - its mouth is too small for this, and its powerful clawed paws are too clumsy. Perhaps the female bends her body so deftly that the egg itself rolls into the bag.

A brood burrow is a warm, dry chamber often dug under an anthill, a termite mound, or even a pile of garden debris next to human structures and busy roads. In this burrow, the female spends most time, but sometimes it comes out to feed - after all, the egg is always with her, securely hidden in a bag.

Tiny, 13-15 mm in size and weighing only 0.4-0.5 g, the cub is born after 10 days. When hatching, he has to break the dense three-layer shell of the egg - for this, a special horny bump on the nose, an analogue of the egg tooth in birds and reptiles, serves. But the echidna does not have real teeth at any age - unlike a recently hatched egg little platypus. The eyes of the hatched echidna cub are rudimentary and hidden under the skin, and the hind legs are practically not developed. But the front paws already have well-defined fingers and even transparent claws. It is with the help of the forelimbs that a small echidna moves from the back of the bag to the front in about 4 hours, to where the area called the milky field, or areola, is located. In this area, 100-150 separate pores of the mammary glands open. Each pore is equipped with a special hair bag, which differs in structure from the bag of ordinary hair. When the cub squeezes these hairs with its mouth, food enters its stomach - although it was previously believed that it simply licks the secreted milk.

Young echidnas grow extremely fast, in just two months increasing their weight by 800-1000 times, reaching a mass of 400 g! To provide the cub with the necessary amount of milk, the female is forced to devote most of her time to the search for food.

Echidnas feed mainly on ants and termites, which they get by tearing the ground and termite mounds with their powerful claws. These animals do not disdain other insects and earthworms. And although the echidna has no teeth, but on the back of its tongue there are horny teeth that rub against the comb-like palate and grind the prey. With the help of the tongue, the echidna swallows not only food, but also small pebbles and particles of soil, which, falling into the stomach, serve as millstones for the final grinding of prey - just as it happens in birds.

The baby echidna stays in the mother's pouch for about 50 days - by this age it simply ceases to fit there and, in addition, it develops spines. After that, the mother leaves him in a hole and comes to feed every 5-10 days - but the amount of milk that the cub receives for one such feeding is about 20% of its body weight! This continues for almost 5 months. In total, the feeding process takes almost 200 days. Therefore, echidna can only breed once a year. But low speed reproduction is compensated in these animals by a long lifespan. authentically famous record the longevity of an echidna in the wild is 16 years, and in the zoo in Philadelphia one echidna lived 49 years - almost half a century!

N.Yu. Feoktistova, Association of Pedagogical Publications "First of September"

Literature: V.E.Sokolov. Systematics of mammals. part 1. - M.: graduate School, 1973. "In the world of science". 1991, No. 4. Australia Nature, 1997-1998, No. 11.

Echidna family (Tachyglossidae)

For the first time, European scientists learned about the echidna in 1792, when a member of the Royal Zoological Society in London, George Shaw (the same one who described the platypus a few years later) compiled a description of this animal, mistakenly classifying it as an anteater. The fact is that this amazing nosy creature was caught on an anthill. The scientist did not have any other information about the biology of the animal. Ten years later, Shaw's compatriot anatomist Edward Home discovered one common feature in echidna and platypus - both of these animals have only one opening at the back leading to the cloaca. And already the intestines, and the ureters, and the genital tract open into it. Based on this feature, a detachment of monotremes (Monotremata) was singled out.

Appearance

Echidnas look like a small porcupine, as they are covered with coarse wool and quills. The maximum body length is approximately 30 cm (Fig. 3). Their lips are beak-shaped. The limbs of the echidna are short and rather strong, with big claws so they can dig well. The echidna has no teeth, its mouth is small. The basis of the diet is termites and ants, which echidnas catch with their long sticky tongue, as well as other small invertebrates, which echidnas crush in their mouths, pressing their tongue against the palate.

The echidna's head is covered with coarse hair; the neck is short, almost invisible from the outside. The auricles are not visible. The muzzle of the echidna 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 holes, from where the echidna gets 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 "beak" of the echidna is richly innervated. Its skin contains both mechanoreceptors and special electroreceptor cells; with their help, the echidna picks up weak fluctuations in the electric field that occur when small animals move. Not a single mammal, apart from echidnas and platypuses, has had such an electrolocation organ.

Muscular system

The muscles of the echidna are rather peculiar. So, a special muscle panniculus carnosus, located under the skin and covering the entire body, allows the echidna to roll into a ball in case of danger, hiding the stomach and exposing the spines. The muscles of the muzzle and tongue of the echidna are highly specialized. Her tongue is able to protrude from her mouth by 18 cm (its total length reaches 25 cm). It is covered in slime to which ants and termites stick. The protrusion of the tongue is provided by the contraction of the circular muscles, which change its shape and push it forward, and two geniohyoid muscles, which are attached to the root of the tongue and the lower jaw. The protruding tongue becomes stiffer due to the rapid flow of blood. Its retraction is provided by two longitudinal muscles. The tongue is able to move high speed- up to 100 movements per minute.

Nervous system

Echidnas have poor eyesight, but their sense of smell and hearing are well developed. Their ears are sensitive to low frequency sounds, which allows them to hear termites and ants under the soil. The brain of the echidna is better developed than that of the platypus, and has large quantity convolutions.

Until recently, it was believed that echidna - the only mammal who does not dream. However, in February 2000, scientists from the University of Tasmania found that a sleeping echidna goes through a phase of REM sleep, but that it depends on temperature. environment. At 25°C, the echidna had a GD phase; however, as the temperature increased or decreased, it decreased or disappeared.

Lifestyle and nutrition

It is a terrestrial animal, although if necessary it is able to swim and cross quite large bodies of water. Echidna is found in any landscape that provides it with enough food - from moist forests to dry bush and even deserts. It is also found in mountainous areas, where snow lies part of the year, and on agricultural lands, and even in the metropolitan suburbs. The echidna is active mainly during the day, but hot weather makes it switch to night image life. The echidna is poorly adapted to the heat, since it does not have sweat glands, and its body temperature is very low - 30-32°C. When hot or cold weather she becomes lethargic; with a strong cold snap, it hibernates for up to 4 months. Stocks of subcutaneous fat allow her, if necessary, to starve for a month or more.

Echidna feeds on ants, termites, less often other insects, small mollusks and worms. She digs up anthills and termite mounds, digs through the forest floor with her nose, strips bark from fallen rotten trees, shifts and overturns stones. Having found insects, the echidna throws out its long sticky tongue, to which the prey sticks. The echidna has no teeth, but the root of the tongue has keratin teeth that rub against the pectinate palate and thus grind food. In addition, the echidna, like birds, swallows earth, sand and small stones, which complete the grinding of food in the stomach.

Echidna leads a solitary lifestyle (with the exception of the mating season). This is not a territorial animal - echidnas encountered simply ignore each other; it does not suit permanent burrows and nests. For rest, the echidna settles in any convenient place - under the roots, stones, in the hollows of fallen trees. The echidna runs badly. Its main defense is thorns; a disturbed echidna rolls up into a ball, like a hedgehog, and if it has time, it partially burrows into the ground, exposing its back to the enemy with raised needles. It is very difficult to pull the echidna out of the dug hole, because it strongly rests on its paws and needles. Among the predators that hunt echidnas - tasmanian devils, as well as cats, foxes and dogs introduced by people. Humans rarely pursue her, as the skin of the echidna is of little value and the meat is not particularly tasty. The sounds that an alarmed echidna makes are reminiscent of soft grunts.

One of the largest fleas, Bradiopsylla echidnae, is found on echidnas, the length of which reaches 4 mm.

reproduction

Echidnas live so secretly that their features marital behavior and breedings 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 (in different parts range, the time of its onset varies), these animals are kept in groups consisting of a female and several males. Both females and males at this time emit a strong musky smell, allowing them to find each other. The group feeds and rests together; when crossing, echidnas follow in single file, forming a "train" or caravan. Ahead is a female, followed by males, which can 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 clods of earth aside. After some time, a real trench 18-25 cm deep forms around the female. The males violently push each other, pushing out of the trench until one male winner 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 next to human habitation. Usually in the 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, postponing it, the echidna deftly curls up into a ball; while the skin on the abdomen forms a fold that releases a sticky fluid. When it hardens, it glues the egg that has rolled out onto the stomach and at the same time gives the bag a shape (Fig. 4).

Brood pouch of a female echidna

After 10 days, a tiny cub hatches: it is 15 mm long and weighs only 0.4-0.5 g. When it hatches, it breaks the egg shell 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 fingers. With their help, the newborn moves from the back of the bag to the front in about 4 hours, where there is a special area of ​​​​skin called the milky field, or areola. In this area, 100-150 pores of the mammary glands open; each pore is provided 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, in just two months increasing their weight by 800-1000 times, 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 that, the mother leaves him in a shelter and until the age of 5-6 months comes to feed every 5-10 days. In total, milk feeding lasts 200 days. Between 180 and 240 days of life, the young echidna leaves the hole and begins to lead an independent life. Sexual maturity occurs at 2-3 years. Echidna breeds only once every two years or less; according to some reports - once every 3-7 years. But the low rate of reproduction is compensated by her long lifespan. In nature, the echidna lives up to 16 years; the recorded longevity record at the zoo is 45 years.

Population status and protection

Echidnas do well in captivity, but do not breed. Only five zoos succeeded in getting the offspring of the Australian echidna, but in no case did the young grow to adulthood.

Australian echidna (lat. Tachyglossus aculeatus) - the mammal with the lowest blood temperature

The taxonomy of echidnas is pretty confusing, in some reference books it is written that there are 5 species of them. However, now scientists believe that there are only two echidnas - the pro-echidna (Zaglossus bruijni), which lives in New Guinea, and the echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), common in Australia, on the island of Tasmania and on the islands in the Bass Strait.

Despite the fact that the echidna is very widespread on the "fifth continent", it is one of the most mysterious Australian animals. Echidna leads such a secretive way of life that many features of the biology of this animal are not known to researchers until now.

For the first time, European scientists learned about the echidna in 1792, when a member of the Royal Zoological Society in London, George Shaw (who described the platypus a few years later) compiled a description of this animal, mistakenly classifying it as an anteater.

The fact is that this amazing nosy creature was caught on an anthill. The scientist did not have any other information about the biology of the animal. Ten years later, Shaw's compatriot anatomist Edward Home discovered one common feature in echidna and platypus - both of these animals have only one opening at the back leading to the cloaca.

And already the intestines, and the ureters, and the genital tract open into it. Based on this feature, a detachment of monotremes (Monotremata) was singled out.

But, in addition to the presence of a cloaca, echidnas and platypuses have one more fundamental difference from all other mammals - these animals lay eggs.

Scientists discovered such an unusual method of reproduction only in 1884, when Wilhelm Haacke, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, noticed a well-developed pouch in the female of this animal, and in it a small rounded egg.

Echidna and platypus have a number of common features, for example, in the structure of chromosomes. In monotremes, they are represented by two types - large (macrosomes), similar to the chromosomes of other mammals, and small (microsomes), similar to reptile chromosomes and not found at all in other animals.

But outwardly, the echidna and the platypus are completely different. Echidna is an animal with a body weight of 2 to 7 kg and a length of about 50 cm. Its body is covered with coarse hair and prickly needles, the length of which reaches 6–8 cm. The neck of the echidna is short, and the head ends with a long cylindrical “beak”.

Just like the platypus, the "beak" of the echidna is a very sensitive organ. Its skin contains both mechanoreceptor cells and special electroreceptors. They perceive weak changes in the electromagnetic field that occur during the movement of small animals - echidna prey.

In no other mammals, except for the echidna and the platypus, such electroreceptors have yet been found.

The mouth opening is located in the echidna at the end of the beak. It is quite tiny, but in the mouth of the animal there is a long, up to 25 cm, sticky tongue, with the help of which the echidna successfully catches its prey.

The short and strong front legs of the echidna are equipped with powerful curved claws, with which it breaks termite mounds. Interestingly, these animals can also swim well!

In addition, a small spur is noticeable on the hind limbs of adult male echidnas - like a platypus, but much less developed and not associated with a poisonous gland. The tail is short, there are either no auricles at all, or they are very small, small and eyes - vision does not play a leading role in the life of an echidna.

In search of food, she relies mainly on smell, and in salvation from enemies - on hearing. The brain of the echidna is better developed than that of the platypus, and has more convolutions.

These animals live, as already mentioned, very secretly. So much so that, for example, the features of reproduction of echidnas remained unknown until very recently.

Only relatively recently, after painstaking work in the laboratory and more than ten thousand hours of observation of prickly animals in nature, scientists managed to penetrate the secrets of their family life.

It turned out that during the courtship period, which lasts for echidnas all winter - from mid-May to mid-September, the animals stay in groups of up to seven individuals each, feed and rest together. Moving from place to place, the animals follow each other in single file, forming something like a caravan. A female always stands at the head of the caravan, the largest of the males follows her, and the smallest and, as a rule, the youngest animal completes the chain.

Outside of the mating season, echidnas are solitary, and it has long been a mystery how males find females during the breeding season. It turned out that chemical signals play the main role in this process - during the mating season, the animals emit a very strong musky smell.

After about a month of living together, the echidnas that make up the group decide to move on to a more serious relationship. Increasingly, one or another male, and sometimes several, immediately begin to touch the tail of the female with their stigmas and carefully sniff her body.

If the female is still not ready for mating, she curls up into a tight prickly ball, and this position cools the ardor of her cavaliers for a while. The female echidna, on the contrary, relaxes and freezes, and then the males begin to lead a kind of round dance around her, while throwing clods of earth aside.

After some time, a real trench 18–25 cm deep forms around the female - people have long puzzled over the origin of these strange circles on Australian soil!

But back to the wedding ceremony of echidnas. At some point, the largest of the males turns his head to the one following him and tries to push him out of the trench. Pushing competitions continue until one winning male remains in the trench.

Finally finding himself alone with the female, he continues to dig the ground, trying to make the “marriage bed” more comfortable, and at the same time excites his chosen one, stroking her with his paws. Mating lasts about an hour and consists in the fact that the male presses the opening of his cloaca to the cloaca of the female, frozen in love ecstasy.

After 21–28 days after this, the female, having retired to a special brood hole, lays a single egg. It is as small as a platypus egg and weighs only about 1.5 g - like a pea! No one has ever seen an echidna move an egg from the cloaca to the bag on the stomach - its mouth is too small for this, and its powerful clawed paws are too clumsy.

Perhaps the female bends her body so deftly that the egg itself rolls into the bag.

A brood burrow is a warm, dry chamber often dug under an anthill, a termite mound, or even a pile of garden debris next to human structures and busy roads. The female spends most of her time in this hole, but sometimes she comes out to feed - after all, the egg is always with her, securely hidden in her bag.

Tiny, 13–15 mm in size and weighing only 0.4–0.5 g, the cub is born after 10 days. When hatching, he has to break the dense three-layer shell of the egg - for this, a special horny bump on the nose, an analogue of the egg tooth in birds and reptiles, serves.

But the echidna does not have real teeth at any age - unlike a small platypus that has recently hatched from an egg. The eyes of the hatched echidna cub are rudimentary and hidden under the skin, and the hind legs are practically not developed. But the front paws already have well-defined fingers and even transparent claws.

It is with the help of the forelimbs that a small echidna moves from the back of the bag to the front in about 4 hours, to where the area called the milky field, or areola, is located. 100–150 separate pores of the mammary glands open in this area. Each pore is equipped with a special hair bag, which differs in structure from the bag of ordinary hair.

When the cub squeezes these hairs with its mouth, food enters its stomach - although it was previously believed that it simply licks the secreted milk.

Young echidnas grow extremely fast, in just two months increasing their weight by 800–1000 times, reaching a mass of 400 g! To provide the cub with the necessary amount of milk, the female is forced to devote most of her time to the search for food.

Echidnas feed mainly on ants and termites, which they get by tearing the ground and termite mounds with their powerful claws. These animals do not disdain other insects and earthworms. And although the echidna has no teeth, but on the back of its tongue there are horny teeth that rub against the pectinate palate and grind the prey.

With the help of the tongue, the echidna swallows not only food, but also small stones, which, getting into the stomach, serve as millstones for the final grinding of prey - just as it happens in birds.

The baby echidna stays in the mother's pouch for about 50 days - by this age it simply ceases to fit there and, in addition, it develops spines. After that, the mother leaves him in the hole and comes to feed every 5-10 days - but the amount of milk that the cub receives for one such feeding is about 20% of its body weight!

This continues for almost 5 months. In total, the feeding process takes almost 200 days. Therefore, echidna can only breed once a year. But the low rate of reproduction in these animals is compensated by a long lifespan.

The well-known longevity record for an echidna in the wild is 16 years, and at the Philadelphia Zoo, one echidna lived for 49 years - almost half a century!

The Australian echidna is common in Australia and Tasmania and is not an endangered species. It is less affected by land clearing, as the Australian echidna does not impose special requirements on habitats, other than a sufficient amount of food.

Echidnas tolerate captivity well, but practically do not breed. Only five zoos managed to get the offspring of the Australian echidna, but in no case did the young grow to adulthood.

The Australian echidna is featured on the 5 cent coin and on the 1992 A$200 commemorative coin. Milli the echidna was one of the summer mascots. olympic games 2000 in Sydney.

Varieties and habitat of echidna, appearance and physiological features, description, nutrition, reproduction, tips for keeping at home.

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Echidna refers to oviparous mammals from the detachment of one-passers. This is an absolutely unique creature, which, together with the platypus, zoologists have identified as an independent zoological order, called Monotremata - Bird Beasts. This name explains well amazing features anatomical structure and the physiology of these two animals, laying eggs, like birds, but feeding newborns with milk, like mammals.

Varieties and habitat of echidna

For the first time, European science learned about the existence of echidna from the report of a member of the Royal Zoological Society in London, George Shaw, read in 1792. But Shaw, who compiled the first description of this animal, was initially mistaken in classifying it as an anteater. In the future, having learned a lot of new and unusual things about this wonderful creature, zoologists corrected the mistake of the discoverer.

Currently, the Echidna family is divided into three genera:

• real echidnas (Tachyglossus);
• prochidna (Zaglossus);
• now extinct genus (Megalibgwilia).

The only representative of true echidnas (Tachyglossus) currently existing in nature is the Australian echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), which has five subspecies:

• Tachyglossus aculeatus multiaculeatus, found on Kangaroo Island;
• Tachyglossus aculeatus setosus, Tasmanian echidna, habitat - the island of Tasmania and the Furno group of islands of the Bass Strait;
• Tachyglossus aculeatus acanthion, distributed in the Northern Territory of Australia and Western Australia;
• Tachyglossus aculeatus, inhabits the Australian states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland;
• Tachyglossus aculeatus lawesii, habitat - the islands of New Guinea, as well as moist forests in northeast Queensland, Australia.

Appearance and physiological features of the echidna

Echidna combines external signs immediately, at least two mammals - a porcupine and an anteater, which makes her appearance very extraordinary and easily recognizable.

The standard length of the Australian echidna is 30-45 centimeters with a weight of 2.5 to 5 kg. The Tasmanian subspecies of this mammal is noticeably larger - up to 53 centimeters.

The body of the animal has a somewhat flattened shape, with a small head, short thick strong paws and a small curly tail.

The muzzle of the bird animal is conically elongated and gradually turns into a kind of cylindrical "beak" up to 75 centimeters long. The shape of the "beak" can be either straight or somewhat curved (depending on the subspecies).

The "beak" is the most important organ, designed both to detect prey and to absorb it. In addition to a very sensitive nose and mouth opening, the “beak” contains mechanoreceptors and electroreceptors - special cells of the body that can detect the slightest fluctuations in the electric field caused by even the slightest movement of insects. There are no more electroreceptor cells in any of the known modern science mammals (with the exception of the platypus).

The structural features of the mouth-beak are such that the echidna cannot fully, like other animals, open its mouth to swallow prey. Its mouth opening does not exceed 5 mm. Therefore, she is only able, like an anteater, to “shoot” her long, thin and sticky tongue in the direction of food, drawing into her mouth everything that has stuck to it and is able to pass in size into such a small hole. The beak-mouth of the "spiny anteater", as this bird animal is sometimes called, is completely toothless. Instead of teeth for grinding solid food, small sharp horn needles are used, dotting the root of the tongue and the palate of the mouth.

The auricles of the echidna are under the thick hair of the head and are almost invisible visually even on the naked body of the cub. At the same time, the hearing of the bird beast is magnificent. Especially in the low frequency range emitted by the underground movement of insects.

The eyes of a mammal are small, having, in addition to the eyelids, nictitating membranes. Despite the small size of the eyes, she has excellent vision (until recently it was considered the opposite), which, combined with sharp hearing and an excellent sense of smell, helps her to detect danger in a timely manner and in most cases avoid direct collision with predators.

Leading an uncommunicative way of life, the echidna almost does not make voice sounds. Only at moments of extreme excitement of a mammal can a soft grunt be heard.

The body of the animal is covered with brown-brown hair, the sides and back are protected by long and sharp quills, like those of a porcupine. The length of the needles reaches 5-6 centimeters.

Powerful strong five-fingered paws (three-toed ones are found in the prochidna) are armed with strong wide claws and are well adapted for digging the earth, moving large stones and destroying termite mounds.

Adult males have sharp and hollow horny spurs on the heels of the hind limbs. Zoologists who discovered echidnas mistook these spurs for special poisonous spikes (perhaps this is where too much poisonous name animal) designed to protect against attacking predators. Modern research has shown that these spurs do not contain poison and are used by the bird animal exclusively for combing out its prickly skin.

On the belly of the female in anticipation mating season a fold of skin (brood bag) is formed in which she bears the egg she has laid, and then the hatched cub, feeding him with milk, like everyone else marsupials animals of Australia.

The uniqueness of the anatomy of a mammal also lies in the presence of the so-called cloaca, into which both the intestinal and genitourinary tracts are simultaneously excreted. For this reason, the echidna was assigned to the zoological order Monotremes. The penis of the male is also unique, large, having three branched heads at once - probably to ensure a more reliable result when mating during the mating season.

Lifestyle and behavior of echidna in nature

The habits and lifestyle of the Australian echidna are not homogeneous and depend not only on the individual nuances of the behavior of each of the subspecies of the animal, but also on the climate, natural landscape and specifics of a particular area.

The "spiny anteater" can be found in the most diverse areas of the Australian mainland and adjacent islands - in hot deserts and in dry bushes, in warm, humid equatorial forests and in the shrubby undergrowth of the foothills. The echidna is equally at home near water bodies, on farmlands, and even in urban suburbs. If only there was enough food, and there were fewer predatory animals.

In the foothills of the island of Tasmania and the Australian Alps, where the temperature drops significantly below zero for several months a year, and the ground is covered with a blanket of snow for a long time, the beast hibernates, having previously dug a deep hole-lair. The presence of a considerable amount of subcutaneous fat accumulated over the summer allows you to easily survive this cold period starvation.

In snowless and warm regions, this prickly beast is awake all year round.

In areas with a temperate continental climate, the echidna leads an active lifestyle, regardless of the time of day. But in the hot semi-deserts, it goes hunting only at night, when the heat subsides. The body of this creature does not tolerate increased heat indicators very well due to the complete anatomical absence of sweat glands and low own body temperature (30–32 ° C).
"Prickly anteater" is a solitary animal, capable of communicating with its own kind only during the mating period. In everyday life, these animals, although they adhere to a certain habitat, but internecine wars they do not lead among themselves, calmly allowing neighbors to sometimes violate the boundaries of marked areas.

Due to the peculiarities of the anatomy of the body and large curved claws, the mammal moves somewhat awkwardly and relatively slowly. And although this bird animal cannot be attributed to waterfowl or water-loving animals, the animal swims quite decently. If necessary, he can easily swim across a wide river.

Despite the fact that the Australian echidna has a vast habitat on the Australian continent, many of its habits have not yet been fully studied - this animal leads a too secretive lifestyle.

Echidna food

The structural features of the oral cavity, in general, determined the diet of the echidna. Since the size of the potential prey is limited by the size of the mouth opening, the basis of nutrition is small insects. First of all, these are termites and ants, which the prickly beast gets to by digging up anthills and destroying termite mounds. In addition, the "spiny anteater" feeds on slugs, snails, worms and insect larvae.

An excellent sense of smell, as well as electroreceptors of the “beak”, allow you to find prey deep underground, under stones and tree stumps. The strong clawed paws put into action and the agile all-penetrating tongue of the animal successfully complete the job. When hunting for prey, the tongue of the bird animal is able to "shoot" at the target with a machine gun firing frequency - about 100 times per minute, penetrating to a depth of up to 18 centimeters.

In exceptional cases, the echidna can do without food for a month, due to its own reserves of subcutaneous fat.

Echidna breeding

The mating season for this wonderful beast begins in May and ends in September. To attract a partner, or rather, partners (several males can follow one female at once, forming competition), the female emits a sharp musky smell and leaves odorous messages to the “grooms” with the help of a cloaca.

Male courtship of the "bride" can last for several weeks, eventually ending with the mating of the winning male with the female, which occurs in the supine position. In time, the mating lasts about an hour, after which the couple scatters forever.

The duration of pregnancy is from 21 to 28 days. It ends with the female laying one or two very small eggs (weighing about 1.5 grams), beige-cream in color, with a leathery shell.

Having barely laid eggs somewhere in a secluded, dry and warm place - a brood hole, the echidna immediately moves them to her bag. How she does this, in fact, without having a normal mouth size and perfect paws, zoologists cannot yet convincingly say. After the eggs are placed in the bag, the female carefully bears them for another 10 days until the offspring appears.

Life and nursing of echidna cubs

The hatched cub, weighing only about 0.5 grams, independently moves to the front of the bag to a skin area called the milky field (in this zone there are about 150 pores of the mammary glands), where it begins to feed on echidna milk that is pink in color (due to excess iron content). . In the future, he remains in the mother's pouch for almost two months, quickly gaining weight. After two months, the "baby" already weighs 400-450 grams. By this time, the baby develops its own spines, and the mother releases it from the bag into a previously prepared shelter hole.

Over the next four months, the grown echidna is in this shelter, and the mother comes to feed her no more than once every 5-10 days. Independent life a newly minted young representative begins at the age of eight months, and puberty occurs at 2-3 years.

Mating of the "spiny anteater" occurs quite rarely, according to available observations - no more than once every 3-7 years. Life expectancy in nature is 15–16 years.

Natural enemies of echidna and ways of defense

On the Australian continent and in Tasmania, the main enemies of echidnas are: dingoes, marsupial Tasmanian devils, monitor lizards, foxes and feral dogs and cats.

A good sense of smell helps this prickly and rather harmless creature to avoid danger, acute vision and great hearing. Having found the enemy, the echidna always tries to leave unnoticed. If this fails, then it is taken at the same time to dig a hole with all four paws, instantly plunging deep into the ground and leaving a back covered with needles for the enemy to attack. This is her favorite defense technique.

If for some reason it is not possible to dig a hole, the beast, like a hedgehog, curls up into a prickly ball. True, this method of salvation is not so perfect. Experienced Australian predators have long learned to overcome echidnas curled up in a ball, rolling them into the water or rolling them on the ground for a long time and contriving to grab the belly that is not protected by needles (when the animal's muscle responsible for twisting into a ball gets tired and the prickly ball opens slightly).

Often, a spiny mammal becomes a victim of aboriginal hunters who hunt it solely for the sake of fat, which is considered a kind of delicacy by local tribes.

It may seem that such an unusual and exotic beast is ill-suited for the role. pet. Actually it is not. There are many examples of successful home maintenance of this thorn bearer.

Of course, keeping such a creature in a limited area of ​​\u200b\u200ba city apartment or freely walking around the house is not worth it. Furniture and the interior of the premises can easily suffer from this - the habit of turning over stones and digging up anthills in search of food from this savage is ineradicable.

Therefore, the optimal conditions for keeping an echidna are a spacious aviary house in front of the house or in the household yard, which reliably protects the beast from cold, heat and too annoying visitors. Do not forget - the "prickly anteater" prefers loneliness. Which, however, does not exclude his walks around the yard. The animal is distinguished by a complaisant and peaceful character, gets along well with households and other pets. Never behaves aggressively. The only thing that can suffer from his claws is your favorite flower garden or garden, which he will definitely check for something tasty.

As for the diet. At home, the bird animal is quite capable of doing without its beloved ants and termites. Echidna with pleasure eats obligatory crushed hard-boiled eggs, fruits, bread, and also chopped meat. He especially likes milk and raw chicken eggs. Do not forget about the container with drinking water.

Efforts on the part of the owner to care for the pet's prickly skin are not required. The animal is able to do all the necessary manipulations on its own.

In captivity, this animal practically does not breed. Only five zoos in the world managed to get echidna offspring, but none of the born pets survived to adulthood.

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