Australian echidna. Oviparous The photo shows an echidna in a defensive pose

CHAPTER EIGHT

OVIPARING MAMMALS

Meet the platypus and the echidna. - Man and echidna are record holders for longevity. - Is it possible to suck milk with your beak? -Who moved the cabinet away from the wall?- “Flying platypuses”, or honorary passengers of the airliner. - Ten thousand earthworms - luggage

It so happened that it was thanks to the echidna that in the spring of 1958 I sent a telegram to the Australian Museum in Adelaide. In this telegram I asked to send me a copy of the portrait of Professor Wilhelm Haacke, which, as I learned shortly before, hung there in the director’s office. Four days later the photograph was already in my hands, and I was able to put it in a book dedicated to the centenary of the Frankfurt Zoo, which contains portraits of all my predecessors - the directors of this park. And Wilhelm Haacke, born in 1855 in Pomerania, was the director of the Frankfurt Zoo from 1888 to 1893. And despite the fact that he published many multi-volume works devoted to the animal world, I still have not been able to get his portrait anywhere.

The idea of ​​finding him in Australia was prompted by Luther Wendt’s book (“In the Footsteps of Noah”), which describes the most important discoveries of Wilhelm Haacke, which are not mentioned in any of the newest books about Australia. And he discovered important phenomena. For example, the fact that the echidna, which belongs to the class of mammals, lays eggs! Simultaneously with him, but already in Queensland, the Australian scientist V. Caldwell discovered the same feature in platypuses.

These two discoveries finally resolved the endless disputes that had raged between zoologists in England, France and Germany since 1798. There was some debate as to where these “one-hole animals,” or, in scientific terms, monotremes, should be placed in the taxonomy. This special subclass of mammals consists of only two families - echidnas and platypuses, representatives of which are found only in Eastern Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. Even the fossil remains of their extinct ancestors have never been discovered anywhere else.

The names of these animals, which, thanks to the light hand of the British, came into use in all countries, are scientifically incorrect: the echidna is a fairly well-known species of eel, and therefore it would be more correct to call it a duck-billed hedgehog; The British call the platypus platypus, while throughout the scientific world it is known that this was the name given to one species of beetle back in 1793. The Germans often call the platypus and echidna sewer animals, which is especially tactless because it suggests some supposed uncleanliness of these animals or their affinity for sewers. Meanwhile, this name means only one thing: in these animals, the intestines and genitourinary canal do not open outward with independent openings (as in other mammals), but, like in reptiles and birds, they flow into the so-called cloaca, which communicates with the outside environment through one opening. So an unappetizing name should under no circumstances scare anyone away or make them think of latrines. On the contrary, these animals are very clean: if they settle near human habitation, they do not live in polluted rivers, but only in reservoirs with clean drinking water. As for our “national pride” of the Rhine River, it has long ago turned into a formal sewer, and the platypus would never agree to settle in it...

When a well-preserved platypus skin was first brought to the British Museum in London in 1798, at first no one wanted to believe in its authenticity. Indeed, it was difficult to believe that this beaver fur, a naked beaver tail and a real duck beak belonged to the same animal. After all, before this, Europeans had been fooled more than once by “overseas miracles” brought from the East. And the course of the ship that delivered the platypus skin also lay across the Indian Ocean, from where the gullible captains brought all sorts of things! Among the bold works of Asian “craftsmen” there were truly unique specimens: there were “new” species of birds of paradise, made up of body parts and feathers of various individuals, and even stuffed “real mermaids”, made from the dried, shriveled heads of some monkeys and the skillfully arranged scaly tails of large fish.

However, four years later, platypus skins began to appear in such quantities that there was no longer any doubt about the existence of such an animal. The famous Scottish anatomist E. Home carefully examined the amazing skins and made a final conclusion: such animals certainly exist. Nevertheless, scientists debated for a long time where to classify the find: to the class of mammals or to a special class of vertebrates?

German professor Johann Friedrich Meckel discovered mammary glands in a female platypus. But scientists of the French school, headed by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, considered them to be ordinary fatty glands and categorically denied the claim that platypus cubs with their duck beaks are capable of sucking milk.

E. Home and the famous paleontologist Richard Owen expressed the opinion that although cloacal animals are oviparous animals, their offspring are nevertheless born without any shell, so to speak, in a “ready-made form”; therefore, they hatch from an egg while still in the womb. Similar phenomena have been encountered before - in various reptiles.

However, Richard Owen soon received a letter from an Australian colleague, doctor John Nicholson from Victoria, in which he described the following curious case to him. Gold miners caught a platypus and, tying it with a rope, put it in an empty beer box. The next morning in the box lay two white eggs, without shells, soft to the touch. “So what - premature birth from fear,” Richard Owen decided and remained unconvinced.

But on September 2, 1884, two important messages arrived almost simultaneously: one to the Royal Society of Australia (RoyalSocietyofAustralia) from W. Haacke and the second from W. Caldwell, transmitted by telegraph to members of the British Zoological Society who had gathered for their next conference in Montreal (Canada).

From Kangaroo Island, which we visited in the second chapter of this book, several echidnas were brought to Wilhelm Haake. Knowing about the protracted dispute regarding their systematic position and method of reproduction, he decided to examine the animals very carefully. Haake asked the institute attendant to hold the female echidna by the leg in a suspended state and began to carefully examine the abdominal side of the animal. To describe everything that happened after this, it is best to quote his own emotional narrative:

“Only a connoisseur of the animal world can understand my immense surprise when I extracted... an egg from the abdominal pouch of an echidna! An egg laid according to all the rules, but by whom? To mammals! This unexpected discovery amazed and confused me so much that I did the stupidest thing I could think of: I squeezed the soft egg with two fingers, causing it to immediately burst. A colorless liquid flowed out of it - apparently, during the female’s stay in captivity, the contents of the egg had already begun to decompose. The length of this elliptical egg was 15 millimeters, the diameter was 13 millimeters, the shell felt like rough parchment and resembled the shell of the eggs of many reptiles.”

On August 24, Caldwell shot and killed a female platypus on the bank of the Burnett River, which had just laid an egg. Having opened the abdominal cavity of the animal, Caldwell found the cervix dilated and in it another mature egg with an embryo at approximately the stage of development at which a chicken embryo is on the third day of incubation.

Since telegrams from Australia to Canada are not cheap, he formulated his discovery in four, now famous words: “Monotremes oviparous ovum meroblastic” (Cloacae - oviparous, soft egg). But he managed to send the telegram only five days later, when the opportunity arose and he was able to pass the note to his friend in Sydney, who immediately sent it. Kolduelya himself began to have a severe attack of tropical fever, after recovering from which he began further searches for platypuses, which, however, were not crowned with success. It was only when he returned to Sydney that he learned that Haacke had also made a similar discovery in Adelaide.

And in 1899, the Czech Alois Topik, who was then working in Australia, managed to trace how platypus cubs suck their mother's milk. At the same time, the female lies on her back, and the cubs, tapping their soft beaks on the sieve-shaped exits of the milk ducts, squeeze out milk from there and lick it off. Looking into the mouths of such babies, scientists, to their surprise, found small milk teeth there. This means that platypuses become toothless only in adulthood.

After these studies, both representatives of oviparous mammals were separated into a separate subclass. Their similarity with reptiles lies mainly in the structure of the eyes, brain and individual parts of the skeleton (in particular, the shoulder girdle), and also in the fact that they also have a cloaca. But they cannot be considered as the ancestors of marsupials or other mammals. This is an independent branch in the evolutionary development of the class of mammals, which followed its own, special path.

All males of these egg-laying mammals have spurs on their ankles, but only platypuses have these spurs that secrete a caustic substance.

It is still interesting why the platypus arouses much more interest in itself than the echidna? Is it because it is almost impossible to see in zoos, or because it is the only mammal with a beak, while spines similar to those that cover the echidna's back are found on other animals? Hard to say. Meanwhile, the echidna has one amazing feature that its waterfowl relative does not have: it pushes the newly laid eggs into its abdominal pouch and in this way carries them with it for another seven to ten days, just like kangaroos and other marsupials do to their offspring. Echidna cubs hatching from eggs reach only 12 millimeters in length. They lick the thick yellowish milk that flows down the female’s fur from the mammary glands. The baby echidnas remain in their mother's pouch until they grow quills, which is usually six to eight weeks. During this time, the cubs reach 9-10 centimeters in length. Now the female hides them in some kind of nest. One-year-old echidnas become sexually mature: by this time they already weigh from 2.5 to 6 kilograms, and the spiny needles on their back reach six centimeters in length.

The abdominal pouch of the echidna is temporary - it is formed only during the birth period. Workers at the Prague Zoo were able to observe that a similar pouch is formed in some males, and with an interval of 28 days.

By the way, echidnas are almost the only mammals that can live for more than half a century. As an exception, horses also succeeded. The echidna from New Guinea lived in the London Zoo for 30 years and 8 months, in the Berlin Zoo one specimen reached thirty-six years of age, and in the Philadelphia Zoo in the USA the Australian echidna lived from 1903 to 1953, therefore 49 years and 5 months (it is not yet known, however, at what age did she get there? She was kept in God knows what wonderful conditions - in a small empty room with a wooden sleeping box.

Only twice were cases of this animal breeding in captivity recorded, and then they ended unsuccessfully. The first was in the Berlin Zoo in 1908, where a newborn cub lived for three months, and the second was in Basel Zoo, where in 1955 the already cooled corpse of a newborn was discovered one morning. After artificial heating, he, however, began to move, but two days later he still died, and they found him on the floor - apparently, his mother threw him out of the bag.

Echidnas do not see very well, but they easily detect any shaking of the ground. They feed mainly on ants and other insects, as can be guessed by the structure of their mouth: it is tube-shaped, toothless, with a long, very flexible tongue. However, on occasion, they are not averse to diversifying their menu somewhat, as long as they can push food through the small hole of their “proboscis”. Thus, in captivity, echidnas willingly drink milk, eat soaked bread, raw or soft-boiled eggs, and minced meat. Unlike their closest relatives, the platypuses, they are able to fast for a long time, sometimes even for a whole month. Apparently, from time to time they fall into a kind of suspended animation. This is, in all likelihood, an adaptation for living in the rather cool winters characteristic of the southern part of their range - in the state of Victoria and on the island of Tasmania.

It's amazing how much strength these little guys have. Thus, the captured echidnas somehow tore off the wire mesh that was firmly nailed down from the box; in another case, they lifted the lid, pressed down on top by heavy weights. In the wild, echidnas, in search of food, easily turn over huge stones twice their size. An Australian zoologist once locked a captured echidna in his kitchen overnight. Imagine his surprise when the next morning he found all the furniture randomly moved out of place. In search of a loophole, the animal moved not only the table, chairs, boxes of food, but even a heavy kitchen cabinet away from the wall.

As a rule, echidnas (again, unlike platypuses) are almost always “on the road” - not only all night long, but most of the day, especially in good weather.

It turns out that these strange animals can run on their hind legs! Zoologist Michael Sharland, walking through the forest in Tasmania one day, saw a young echidna near a path, busily sniffing the ground as always. Feeling the shaking of the soil from approaching steps, the animal, taken by surprise, rose to its hind legs, stood there for several seconds, as if indecisive, and then fearfully rushed into the bushes, and it also ran on its hind legs.

“It looked very funny,” says M. Sharlevd.

Three subspecies of echidnas have been described for the Australian continent, but these animals do not differ in any significant way from each other. Echidnas living in Tasmania, according to some scientists, are larger than mainland ones, but other researchers dispute this. In New Guinea, in addition to one subspecies of five-toed mainland echidnas, there are three more subspecies of another species, with a significantly elongated trunk (Zaglossus). These animals have much thicker and longer fur; in some, at first glance, it is even difficult to distinguish the needles. These “New Guineans” are indeed larger than mainland species: they reach from 45 to 75 centimeters in length and weigh from 5 to 10 kilograms. One such animal at the London Zoo, obese in captivity, even weighed as much as 16 kilograms.

Previously, in Australia, some residents willingly ate echidnas: after all, there were also people in Europe who liked to eat hedgehogs! However, among some tribes, for example among the Aranda, young people did not dare to try this delicacy, because there was a belief that echidna meat causes gray hair. However, the same property was attributed to the meat of several other wild animals. Apparently, such a belief made it easier for the old and weak people from this tribe to get food for themselves.

E. Troughton once had to taste pancakes fried in echidna fat. “Apparently, this is one of those troubles,” he writes, “that can befall an inquisitive vertebrate researcher who uses the services of an overly inventive cook...”

And for the first time I was able to meet the famous platypus not in his homeland, Australia, but in the New York Zoo. By the way, most people who have ever seen a live platypus met it there.

These rare animals were transported outside the Fifth Continent three times and demonstrated to an enthusiastic overseas audience.

However, this could not have been done if not for Harry Burrell. Only thanks to the extraordinary efforts of this Australian zoologist was it possible to transport such capricious, fastidious and voracious passengers across the ocean. Back in 1910, Harry Burrell invented and built a special portable tank with a labyrinth attached to it, through the tunnels of which the platypus could get into its “hole.” The tunnels were blocked by rubber sluices, which the animal squeezed through to squeeze water out of its skin. Under natural conditions, the platypus does this by climbing into narrow earthen passages where the soil absorbs all the moisture.

Burrell's first captive escaped from him on the sixty-eighth day, but he managed to exhibit the second for three months at the Sydney Zoo. True, then he lost the patience to tinker with them. The fact is that because of the five platypuses that Burrell initially kept, he had to wield a shovel and a net for six hours a day in order to get for his pets the two pounds of earthworms, crabs, beetle larvae and water snails necessary to feed them . When he had only one animal left, it turned out that it could easily eat a portion of food designed for five.

Then the First World War began, and a few years after its end, the famous fur trader Alice Joseph encouraged Harry Burrell to take up platypuses again. Joseph wanted to bring a live platypus to the United States at all costs. And indeed, on May 12, 1922, he loaded onto the ship, along with a large collection of other animals, five male platypus placed in a “barrel tank.” With all this cargo he left for San Francisco. Of course, the huge bag of earthworms was not forgotten either. After 49 days, when the ship arrived at its destination port, out of five platypus only one remained alive, and the worms were all eaten. It took Alice Joseph several days to get new earthworms, after which he boarded a train and arrived safely in New York.

His arrival caused a sensation. The platypus was shown to the public for only one hour a day, so in order to look at the overseas miracle, one had to stand in a huge line. This line slowly passed by an outdoor pool in which a platypus was swimming. Dr. William Hornaday, then the director of the zoo, complained that he had to shell out four or even five dollars every day to feed one such small “guest.” The platypus received half a pound of worms, forty shrimp and forty chafer larvae. By the way, the portion, as it has now turned out after many studies, is completely insufficient for this animal. However, at that time the director wrote:

“Really, it’s hard to believe that such a small animal is capable of absorbing such a lot of food. I have never seen anything like this among mammals.”

47 days later, on August 30, 1922, the platypus died. However, even the short stay of this extraordinary animal at the New York Zoo aroused enormous interest and great excitement.

More significant success in keeping these animals in captivity was achieved by Robert Eady, director of the private Collin MacKenzie Zoo, located in Healesville, near Melbourne. He managed to keep his famous Splash there in captivity for four years and one month.<с 1933 по 1937 год). Содержался он в специальном сооружении, оборудованном для него по эскизу Баррела.

Healesville Zoo may not have a diverse selection of animals, but it is located in one of the most beautiful places in Australia. It is located right in the middle of a picturesque forest. Only domestic animals are exhibited here, and in conditions very close to natural.

When David Flea became director of the zoo in 1938, he placed two platypuses, Jill and Jack, in an artificial pond in which the female Jill could dig nesting chambers in an earthen dam.

One September day (when it was spring in Australia), Jack grabbed his nimble girlfriend by the hairless and flat tail, like a beaver, and they began to quickly swim in a circle. This is how platypuses express their love. In mid-October they mated, and on October 25, Jill climbed into her earthen burrow to hatch her offspring.

Now we already know that, when climbing into a hole to lay eggs, the female platypus drags armfuls of wet leaves into it, and the method of carrying them is very original: the female presses the leaves to her stomach with her tail tucked under her. She seals the entrance to the hole from the inside with earth. And only after that it lays from one to three eggs, but most often two. To incubate, the female curls up into a ball or lies on her back and lays her eggs on her stomach, on a warm skin. She does not have a pouch on her stomach in which she could carry her cubs. For this aquatic animal, the bag would not be of much use.

Platypus eggs resemble passerine eggs, only they are more round; their size is from 1.6 to 1.8 centimeters. The shell of the eggs is soft, and they stick together easily. The hatchlings are naked and blind. During incubation, the female, as a rule, does not leave her hiding place for several days. She appears from there only to recover, wash herself and moisturize her skin. Then she disappears again into her “cell” and carefully barricades the entrance with earth. The cubs dare to leave their home only after four months. By this time, they are already completely overgrown with wool and reach 35 centimeters in length. Young platypuses can be very playful and playful and willingly play even with humans.

The female Jill died in Healesville in her tenth year of life, and the male Jack even lived to the age of seventeen.

Such unparalleled success in breeding platypuses in captivity haunted the administration of the Bronx Zoo in New York. It was decided to lure David Flea to New York. Soon they signed a contract with him, according to which he had to catch three platypuses - a male and two females - and bring them alive to New York.

And indeed, on March 29, 1947, David Flea, his wife and three platypuses departed on a ship for Boston. 25 years have passed since the first trip of platypuses to America. Now the voyage took not 49, but 27 days. But despite this, along the way we had to replenish the supply of earthworms twice. In Healesville, these three platypuses were trained for a year to be kept in captivity. Therefore, they survived the journey safely and arrived in Boston healthy and unharmed. There they were quickly loaded onto vehicles, and within three days the “overseas miracle” was put on display in New York. These are the animals I happened to see during my trip to America.

Observations were made on the brought platypuses, which made it possible to become more familiar with their biology and habits. For example, it turned out that these animals only enter warm (above 15°) water. If the water temperature is below 10°, they prefer to stay on the shore. Each platypus, weighing 1.5 kilograms, eats 540 grams of earthworms, 20 to 30 crayfish, 200 mealworms, two small frogs and two eggs daily. Such maintenance of platypuses probably cost more than 45 dollars, which the former director of the New York Zoo was once forced to spend, complaining about the high cost of food for platypuses. In the winter, worms had to be flown in from Florida. Two of these animals had lived in New York for more than ten years, therefore reaching the age of eleven.

And David Flea returned to Australia and settled near Brisbane in the state of Queensland, known for its favorable climate. There I visited him during my stay in Australia. He has a private zoo, on the territory of which stands his neat wooden house. Over a cup of coffee, he told me the story of the next, third, importation of platypuses to America, this time by plane.

When the last platypus died, the New York Zoo ordered three new ones from David Flea to stock their orphaned pond. The previous capture of platypuses (in 1946) was not particularly difficult. The animals were caught in the immediate vicinity of Healesville, and at first there were as many as 19 of them, from which the three strongest and most resilient were later selected.

But this time things became much more complicated. Firstly, a special permit was required to export platypuses, even two such permits from the Queensland government and the Australian Academy of Sciences: after all, platypuses are now among the most strictly protected animals in Australia. In addition, we were unlucky with the weather: the rainy season did not want to begin, the streams and rivers became shallower and shallower, in their dry beds there were only rare barrels, or even just muddy muddy puddles. It looked like it was going to be a tough year for the platypuses. The females did not even start digging nesting holes. Typically, the entrance to such a hole is located about 30 centimeters above the surface of the water. The animal gets in there completely wet, but comes out completely dry: the earth absorbs all the moisture.

The area in which David Flea and his assistants were looking for platypuses was heavily indented by impassable ravines and gorges. The heat was unbearable, the midges stung the catchers in the most merciless way, sometimes it was even impossible to drive them away, because when you see a platypus on the shore, you cannot move. The slightest movement - and the sensitive animal will splash into the water and instantly disappear from sight.

Platypuses usually wake early in the morning and late in the evening. For the most part, they lie motionless on the water, and the current carries them like a piece of log. Having discovered prey, they dive, splashing the water with their wide, oar-like tail. When the platypus is underwater, its eyes and ears are covered by folds of skin, so it navigates there only with the help of its sense of touch. Particularly sensitive in this animal is its long “duck beak” - this is what was once mistakenly called in Europe for what was actually a completely soft growth on the head of the platypus. The fact is that the platypus skins that were first brought to Europe had heads with dried noses that really resembled beaks.

The platypus usually stays underwater for no more than one minute, and then emerges to take air into its lungs. Frightened, he can sit under water for five minutes. Everything that the platypus collects - larvae, small crabs, snails, small fish - he stuffs into his cheek pouches like a hamster. He also collects small stones and sand there - apparently for better grinding and grinding of food. Larger prey, such as crayfish, is carried ashore by platypuses. They make almost no sounds, except for a quiet rumbling. They give off a “fox smell”, which is emitted by special glands located at the base of cabbage soup, but in the wild it is almost imperceptible to the human sense of smell. Their burrows have many passages and branches. Thus, the nesting chamber is sometimes located seven meters from the entrance and may even have side passages 18 meters long. Therefore, it is foolish to hope to “dig out” such an animal from its shelter: it will still sneak away.

However, now all this knowledge was of little use. David spent several weeks in the wildest areas, traveled 13 thousand kilometers by car - and there was no point. Meanwhile, from New York, telegrams flew one after another, urging them to hurry up, reminding them of deadlines, and finally expressing surprise, bewilderment, displeasure... But finally, after three months, the first pair of platypuses was caught - a male and a female. True, three cubs were ordered: one male and two females, but the second female could not be caught.

Now it was necessary to check whether these animals could survive air travel: after all, this time it was decided to transport them to America by plane. For a test flight to Brisbane and back (a total of 180 kilometers), several adult animals from the zoo were taken. The platypuses set off in boxes lined with fresh grass. When they returned home, it turned out that one of the females was so worried that she could barely breathe, and in order to save her life, she had to be released into the wild.

However, it was necessary to hurry up with the flight to New York, because the coming spring in America did not bode well for Queensland - here, on the contrary, winter was approaching. And in winter, hardly anyone wants to get into cold water and swim, setting traps.

It was decided to send five thousand earthworms and the same number of mealworms forward as luggage to wait for the platypuses in Hawaii, where there would be an intermediate landing. But here a new difficulty arose. The importation of any kind of soil to the Hawaiian Islands is prohibited, and worms can only be transported in boxes with soil, otherwise they will die.

What to do? We decided to check how platypuses would react to cleanly washed worms. They didn't even touch them. Then the luggage with the worms had to be sent a week earlier so that the worker accompanying them could cover them on the island with Hawaiian soil. And they were taken there in clean plastic bags. What a hassle!

So, a couple of young platypuses and another female, who was accidentally caught just before leaving in a cow pasture, were accompanied by a whole escort: the Fleas, the plane crew, a zookeeper, as well as 10 thousand earthworms, 25 thousand mealworms and 550 crayfish. This composition all arrived safely from Brisbane to Sydney. But it turned out that the large transcontinental plane was delayed for two days. This meant that the voracious air passengers would gobble up their travel provisions before they reached New York. Again a telegram flew to Westbury: “SOS. Send out the worms immediately."

And on the next flight a new batch of earthworms arrived - again several thousand pieces and, in addition, 50 crayfish.

As soon as the powerful plane took off, the unusual passengers immediately became terribly worried, and two hours later they were rushing around their tank like mad, throwing themselves at the wall, clinging to it and splashing back into the water. Of course, they were frightened by the terrible roar of four powerful engines roaring in the immediate vicinity of the wall near which the tank stood. Platypuses cannot tolerate such noise at all.

During the first stopover in Fiji, David Flea looked into the tank and found neither Pamela, nor Paul, nor the third female there. It turned out that they all hid in their “burrows” - artificial compartments with dry bedding. In Hawaii, the Fleas left for customs inspection and medical examination. Meanwhile, quarantine service inspectors pulled water tanks out of the plane and overturned them so unceremoniously that water flooded the compartments with dry bedding. The Fleas immediately had to pull out the wet grass and replace it with dry hay. But the most important thing is that the platypuses were alive and even perked up somewhat, feeling solid ground beneath them. And on Sunday morning they were already met at the New York airfield by all the leading specialists of the Bronx Zoo. Thus ended the third journey of platypuses from Australia to America.

Unfortunately, the animals delivered with such difficulty this time lived in the zoo for only eight months.

So far, these interesting representatives of the Australian fauna still remain rather poorly studied. It turned out, for example, that at an early age even females have spurs, they just disappear later. The caustic substance, which in adult males is secreted from special glands and injected into the wound through a hollow spur, is by no means harmless. Once, one male, kept in a reservoir together with a female, got angry and attacked her, and she almost died from poisoning. The zookeeper, whom the platypus pricked with its spur, even fell to the ground from unbearable pain. His arm was greatly swollen up to the shoulder, and for several months this man felt constant weakness and other effects of poisoning.

Today, neither platypuses nor echidnas are considered endangered or endangered. These animals have almost no natural enemies in Australia; only a carpet python, a fox or a marsupial devil can covet them. Some platypuses die in the tops of fishermen: they swim there, but no longer find a way out, so they cannot go up for the necessary portion of air and suffocate. Until now, it has not been possible to convince fishermen to use tops with a hole at the top.

However, since 1905, platypuses have been under full state protection and have since reproduced quite successfully. They are found up to an altitude of 1650 meters above sea level. Most of them are in Tasmania. There, platypuses are found even in the suburbs of the capital, Hobart. Zoologist Sharland believes that intricate labyrinths of platypuses with nesting chambers can be found even under the streets of the suburbs. But one should not think that it is so easy for any strolling summer resident to see a platypus - one must not forget that this is a very cautious animal, leading a predominantly nocturnal lifestyle.

The echidna is even more widespread. I would even go so far as to say that it is one of the most abundant wild animals in Australia. Every now and then I found them crushed on the highways.

I am not sure that the welfare of these animals is entirely related to the law on the protection of endemic fauna. I traveled around Australia, and I got the impression that these laws are not very strictly observed... Here, any person has the right to buy a gun in a store and, driving five miles from the city limits, shoot at whatever he wants. The simple fact is that the echidna and the platypus have some advantages over other animals: they have worthless skin that cannot be sold to anyone, they have too little meat, and it is not very tasty; and, of course, their secretive, nocturnal lifestyle. But the most decisive point must still be considered that even the most absurd and uneducated farmer would not think of suspecting these animals of killing lambs or eating sheep feed.

author Kondratov Alexander Mikhailovich

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The Australian echidna is covered with spines, like the porcupine, but in terms of its feeding type it is more like an anteater. Echidnas and platypuses are the only mammals that lay eggs.

   Row - Monotremes
   Family - Echidnovae
   Genus/Species - Tachyglossus aculeatus

   Basic data:
DIMENSIONS
Body length: 35-50 cm.
Tail length: up to 10 cm.
Spine length: 6 cm.
Weight: 2.5-6 kg, males are a quarter heavier than females.

REPRODUCTION
Puberty: from 1 year.
Mating season: from June.
Development of offspring: hatches from the egg after 10 days, leaves the pouch after 6-8 weeks.
Number of cubs: 1.

LIFESTYLE
Habits: stay alone; animals are active at dawn and dusk.
Food: ants, termites and other ground insects.
Lifespan: up to 50 years old.

RELATED SPECIES
The only relative is the echidna (Zaglossus bruijni), living in New Guinea.

   The Australian echidna feeds on termites and ants. In most cases, it inhabits light grassy and wooded areas with sufficiently loose soil so that in case of danger a protective hole can be quickly dug.

FOOD

   The Australian echidna feeds on various types of termites and ants. Only sometimes, in order to diversify its diet, it eats other insects and small animals. The echidna is a carnivore, but the size of its prey is limited by the size of its mouth. Its peculiarity is that the upper jaw of the echidna is connected to the lower. Thus, the echidna’s mouth opening is very small and opens exclusively at the end of its long, pointed muzzle. Therefore, the animal catches prey with a long, worm-like tongue with a sticky surface. She can extend it by 18 cm.
   The ants stick to the tongue, and the echidna pulls them into its mouth. The echidna has no teeth, so the animal grinds food with horny denticles that cover the base of the tongue and palate. With the help of its tongue, the echidna also swallows pebbles and soil, which help grind the food in the stomach. The echidna usually goes hunting early in the morning and at dusk. If the heat is unbearable, the echidna comes out of its hiding place only at night. The echidna finds its prey using its excellent sense of smell. She sniffs the forest floor and piles of leaves, from where she digs up termites and ants. When digging, the echidna turns over stones that are twice as heavy as it is. She rests her paws on the ground and pushes away the stones with her shoulders.

LIFESTYLE

   The size of the area that an echidna needs to live depends on the amount of food on it. In wet forested areas, where prey is usually plentiful, the animal's territory is approximately 50 hectares, and individual areas may partially overlap. During the day, the Australian echidna rests, hiding under tree roots, stones or in hollows. At night she goes in search of insects. The Australian echidna leaves its shelter only at a certain temperature. When it is too hot, she comes out of hiding only at night. The echidna does not tolerate heat and excess solar heat very well. If the animal does not hide from the sun's rays in time, this can lead to its death. In cold weather, the echidna can remain out of shelter throughout the day. This animal has few enemies: the only danger for the echidna is a meeting with a person who hunts it for fat.
   When an echidna is frightened by something, it surprisingly quickly partially buries itself in the loose soil. If the ground is hard, the echidna curls up into a ball, like a hedgehog. During the cold season, the Australian echidna falls into a short hibernation.

REPRODUCTION

   Australian echidnas breed in July and August, when winter reigns in the southern hemisphere. Only at this time of year do animals stay in pairs. The female, ready for mating, leaves an odorous trail on the ground, along which the male finds her. Having found such a trail, the male sets off along it in search of the female. Often one female is followed by 3-5 males. About two weeks after mating, the female lays 1 egg the size of a hazelnut. It is still unclear how the egg gets into the echidna’s pouch. It has been proven that she cannot do this with her paws, so it is believed that the echidna, bending over, carries it straight into the pouch.
   After 7-10 days, a baby 12 mm long hatches from the egg. He sticks his head into the pouch where the mammary glands open and licks the milk.

  

DID YOU KNOW THAT...

• In case of danger, the Australian echidna wraps itself in a ball, just like the hedgehog we know does.
• Tasmanian echidnas, which live in Tasmania, have shorter spines and they are not spaced as often, so they do not need a highly developed scratching claw.
• Echidnas, like humans, belong to a small group of long-lived mammals that can live more than 50 years. Such a long lifespan is very unusual for such a small animal.
• The platypus and echidna, found in Australia, are the only mammals that lay eggs.
• Female echidnas do not have the classic outlet of the mammary glands - nipples. The milk flows through the pores into a hairy sac on the front of the pouch, from where the baby licks it.
• Male echidnas have a special outgrowth on the heels of their hind legs - a horny spur, into which a poisonous gland opens. However, this gland does not perform any function, that is, it does not produce poison.

  

FEATURES OF THE AUSTRALIAN ECHIDNA

   Nose: pointed, naked, with well-developed nostrils and a small mouth opening at the end.
   Spines: grow from thick fur, covering the back and sides of the Australian echidna.
   Teeth: The elephant has only four functional teeth, 30 cm long, one on each side of the jaw. They can grow back up to six times during the animal's life.
   All four paws have 5 strong claws, adapted for digging.
   The second toe on the hind legs ends in a long curved claw, which serves the echidna for scratching its skin.
   Echidna digs the ground in search of termites and ants. She collects insects with her sticky tongue.

- Range of the Australian echidna
PLACES OF ACCOMMODATION
The Australian echidna lives in the arid regions of Australia and Tasmania.
PRESERVATION
The Australian echidna has few natural enemies - its only threat is that the people of Australia consider its fat a delicacy. Echidnas do not cause any harm and are not of great economic importance, so they are not hunted en masse.

Order - Monotremes / Family - Echidnaidae / Genus - True echidnas

History of the study

The Australian echidna (lat. Tachyglossus aculeatus) is an oviparous mammal of the echidna family. It is the only representative of the true echidna genus Tachyglossus; sometimes its subspecies, the Tasmanian echidna, is distinguished as a separate species - Tachyglossus setosus.

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 the 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.

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

Spreading

Lives throughout Australia, as well as in New Guinea, Tasmania, and on the islands located in Bass Strait. Habitats include plains, rainforests, mountains, and even cities.

Appearance

Outwardly, the animal most closely resembles a hedgehog - its entire body is covered with hard, coarse hairs, and its sides and back are studded with long, 5-6 cm, yellow needles with black tips. The Australian echidna grows up to 50 cm in length and weighs up to 7 kg. The tail and ears are so small that they are practically invisible.

The echidna's muzzle is very elongated, up to 7.5 cm in length, and plays an extremely important role in the life of the animal, since its vision is poorly developed, and the environment is learned mostly through smell and hearing. The mouth, which is a very small hole at the end of the muzzle, has no teeth, but it contains a sticky tongue that is 25 cm long.

The absence of teeth is compensated by the presence of hard pads in the back of the mouth, against which food is ground. In addition, along with food, soil and sand enter the stomach, which contribute to the final grinding of the prey.

Reproduction

Echidnas live so secretly that the peculiarities 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 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 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: 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. Sexual maturity 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.

Lifestyle

Australian echidnas can live in almost any part of the mainland, regardless of the landscape. Their home can be both wet forests and dry areas, both mountains and plains. Even in cities they are not that uncommon.

True, echidnas do not tolerate heat and cold well because they do not have sweat glands. In hot weather they become lethargic, and in low temperatures they go into hibernation, which can last 4 months. During this period, they use up their subcutaneous fat reserves.

Echidnas love to eat well and eat a lot. To do this, they can walk quite long distances without stopping and resting, which can reach 10-15 kilometers a day.

Echidnas are loners by nature. They unite in groups only at the beginning of the mating season, and then scatter again. They do not protect their territory and do not build permanent shelters. Echidnas are free and free to travel wherever they please. Any secluded place will suit them for sleep and rest, be it a hole between the roots of trees, a crevice between stones, hollows of fallen trees, etc.

They move a little awkwardly. But they swim very well. Echidnas are able to swim across small bodies of water.

Nutrition

Echidnas feed mainly on ants and termites, which they obtain by tearing apart 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, on the back of its tongue there are horny teeth that rub against the comb palate and grind its prey. With the help of its tongue, the echidna swallows not only food, but also small pebbles and particles of soil, which, when they enter the stomach, serve as millstones for the final grinding of prey - similar to what happens in birds.

Number

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.

Australian echidna and man

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 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Australian echidna in appearance it resembles a large light brown hedgehog. She walks slowly, but at the sight of a threat she can bury herself in the ground in an instant.

HABITAT

The Australian echidna is found in Australia, on the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea, usually settling in places with soft soil. Most often, damp lowlands overgrown with forest serve as its shelter, but the echidna can often be found in dry, rocky areas, where it is easy to find a reliable shelter among the rocks. In extreme heat, the echidna sits out in the shade because it does not tolerate high temperatures; however, she also hides in shelter from the rain.

LIFESTYLE

The Australian echidna leads a solitary lifestyle, occupying an area of ​​about 50 hectares. She does not have a permanent home, and she walks freely around her site, only if necessary, using the first shelter she comes across. This could be a hollow in an old tree, a secluded corner in a thicket of bushes, or a crevice in the rocks. Having found a suitable place, the echidna spends the night there, if it is cold outside, and the hottest hours of the day. At the most comfortable time of day - morning and evening - she goes in search of loot. The main dish on the menu of this mammal is ants, termites and the larvae of various insects, which the echidna finds with the help of a keen sense of smell. Having dug out an anthill or termite mound with its strong paws, the animal sticks its narrow muzzle inside, and then a long and narrow tongue, covered with a sticky mucous secretion, to which the insects stick tightly. Having collected a portion of food, the echidna retracts its tongue and grinds the prey with horny denticles located on the palate and back of the tongue. The echidna searches for larvae by rummaging in piles of fallen leaves or moving fairly heavy stones. Sensing danger, it defends itself in two ways: on hard ground it curls up into a prickly ball, like a hedgehog, and on loose soil it instantly buries itself in the ground. After a minute, only sharp needles are visible on the surface, and only dingo dogs can dig the echidna out of such a trench. In winter, echidnas living in the mountains hibernate for several weeks, and then their body temperature drops to 4 °C.

REPRODUCTION

The mating season for echidnas is confined to the Australian winter, but the animals look for a mate ahead of time in July-August. A female ready for mating leaves behind an odorous trail on the ground, informing the male that a favorable partner is nearby. Having discovered this eloquent smell, the male rushes along the trail, and sometimes several suitors follow one female at once. The one who finds the “bride” first stays with her for several days, during which mating occurs. The female develops a primitive pouch on her belly, intended for the future egg. A few days later, the partners go in different directions, and two weeks after mating, the female lays one egg. To ensure that it gets directly into the pouch, the female rolls up into a ball at the moment of laying. After 7-10 days, the baby emerges from the egg, breaking the shell with a horny bump on the nose. The newborn reaches 11 mm in length and sits in the mother’s pouch for 8-9 weeks. The echidna has no nipples, and milk flows from the mammary glands directly onto the skin of the pouch, from where the baby licks it.

At about 9 weeks of age, the baby's skin becomes covered with spines; from that time on, the mother does not allow him to sit in the bag and, when going in search of food, leaves him in the hole, although from time to time she returns to feed her child. At 6 months, milk feeding stops, but for another six months the cub remains with the mother. A one-year-old echidna reaches sexual maturity and begins an independent life. Juveniles often become prey to predators introduced to Australia: foxes, cats or dingoes, but despite this, the population of Australian echidnas is not in immediate danger.

DID YOU KNOW?

• The echidna is capable of sticking out its tongue up to 18 cm. The Latin name of the animal, Tachyglossus, means “fast tongue.”
• During the period of activity, the echidna’s body temperature is about 32 °C. Thick fur and subcutaneous fat form a layer of thermal insulation, allowing the body to maintain a temperature higher than the surrounding temperature.
• The echidna's eyes are protected by a transparent "third eyelid".
• Echidnas are long-lived animals, capable of living up to 50 years in captivity, although to date no animal older than 16 years has been found in the wild. Echidnas tolerate life well in captivity, but reproduce very rarely.
• To get to the tasty larvae, the echidna rests its paws on the ground and with its back moves stones, sometimes twice as heavy as itself.
• The indigenous people of Australia hunt echidnas, considering their meat a delicious delicacy.

RELATED SPECIES

The echidna family includes five species, including the prochidna and the Tasmanian echidna. All of them live in Australia and on its neighboring islands - Tasmania and New Guinea. The platypus and echidnas are part of the order Monotremes - primitive egg-laying mammals. Their characteristic features are short legs, a small head and tiny eyes. Echidnas live on land, while the platypus is an amphibian.

Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)- inhabits South-Eastern Australia and the island of Tasmania. Lives solitarily, digging holes in the steep banks of rivers and lakes; feeds on mollusks, obtaining them in the water. Reaches a length of 60 cm and a weight of up to 2.5 kg. After 15-27 days of pregnancy, the female lays eggs in the hole and incubates them for another 7-10 days. In captivity, the platypus lives for about 17 years. In pursuit of valuable fur, people almost completely exterminated this species, so now it is under strict protection.

The echidna is an oviparous mammal from the family Tachyglossidae of the order Monotremata (monotremes). 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 is related to the porcupine due to their similarities in appearance. 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 a high metabolic rate (though 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.