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Spiny Anteater — Echidna also known as “spiny anteater”, is a mammal belonging to the Tachyglossidae family of the monotremes. It is the only surviving member of its genus in the latter order, together with the platypus. There are four species, living in New Guinea and Australia. The echidna is named after a monster in ancient Greek mythology.
Echidnas are small mammals that are covered with coarse hair and spines. Superficially they resemble the anteaters of South America, and other spiny mammals like hedgehogs and porcupines. They have snouts which have the functions of both the mouth and nose. Their snouts are elongated and slender. They have very short, strong limbs with large claws and are powerful diggers. Echidnas have a tiny mouth and a toothless jaw. They feed by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and use their long, sticky tongue which protrudes from their snout to collect their prey. The Short-beaked Echidna’s diet consists largely of ants and termites, while the Zaglossus species typically eat worms and insect larvae.
The echidna, along with the Platypus, are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes. The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg twenty-two days after mating and deposits it directly into her pouch. Hatching takes ten days; the young echidna, called a puggle, then sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no nipples) and remains in the pouch for forty-five to fifty-five days, at which time it starts to develop spines. The mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the puggle, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months.
The echidnas have a four-headed penis, but only two of the heads are used during mating. The other two heads “shut down” and do not grow in size. The heads used are swapped each time the mammal has sex.
