Australian echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus). Not a malicious echidna at all Where was the first echidna discovered?

Varieties and habitat of the echidna, appearance And physiological characteristics, description, nutrition, reproduction, advice on keeping it at home.

The content of the article:

The echidna belongs to the oviparous mammals from the order Monotremes. 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 the amazing features well. anatomical structure and the physiology of these two animals, which lay eggs like birds, but suckle their newborns like mammals.

Species and habitat of the echidna

European science first learned about the existence of the echidna from a report by 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 a member of the Anteater order. Later, having learned a lot of new and unusual things about this wonderful creature, zoological scientists corrected the discoverer’s mistake.

Currently, zoologists divide the Echidnovidae family into three genera:

• true echidnas (Tachyglossus);
• echidnas (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 Furneaux island group of Bass Strait;
• Tachyglossus aculeatus acanthion, distributed throughout 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 rain forests in northeast Queensland, Australia.

Appearance and physiological characteristics of the echidna

Echidna combines external signs at least two mammals at once - a porcupine and an anteater, which makes its appearance very unusual and easily recognizable.

Standard length 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 legs and a small curly tail.

The muzzle of the bird beast is cone-shaped and gradually turns into a kind of cylindrical “beak” up to 75 centimeters long. The shape of the “beak” can be either straight or slightly curved (depending on the subspecies).

The “beak” is the most important organ, designed both to detect prey and to absorb it. In addition to the 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. No other known cell has electroreceptor cells. modern science mammals (with the exception of the platypus).

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

The echidna's ears are located under the thick hair of the head and are visually almost invisible even on the baby's naked body. At the same time, the bird's hearing is excellent. Especially in the low frequency range emitted by the underground movement of insects.

The mammal's eyes are small, having, in addition to the eyelids, nictitating membranes. Despite the small size of its eyes, it has excellent vision (until recently it was believed the opposite), which, combined with acute hearing and an excellent sense of smell, helps it promptly detect danger and, in most cases, avoid direct collisions with predators.

Leading an uncommunicative lifestyle, the echidna makes almost no vocal sounds. Only in moments of extreme excitement of the mammal can a quiet 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-fingered paws are found in the echidna) are armed with strong, wide claws and are well adapted for digging the ground, moving large stones and destruction of termite mounds.

In adult males, on the heels of the hind limbs there are sharp and hollow horny spurs inside. Zoologists who discovered the echidna mistakenly mistook these spurs for special poisonous spines (perhaps this is where too much comes from poisonous name animal) designed to protect against attacking predators. Modern research showed that these spurs do not contain poison and are used by the bird beast exclusively for combing out its prickly skin.

On the eve of the mating season, a fold of skin (brood pouch) is formed on the female’s abdomen, in which she carries the egg she lays, and then the hatched baby, feeding it with milk, like everyone else marsupial mammals animals of Australia.

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

Echidna lifestyle and behavior in nature

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

The “spiny anteater” can be found in a wide variety of areas Australian mainland and adjacent islands - in hot deserts and dry bush, in warm, humid equatorial forests and in shrubby forests of the foothills. The echidna feels equally good near ponds, on farmland and even in urban suburbs. If only there was enough food, and there were fewer predatory animals.

In the foothill regions of the island of Tasmania and the Australian Alps, where the temperature drops significantly below zero for several months of the year, and the ground is covered with a blanket of snow for a long time, the animal hibernates, having previously dug itself a deep hole-lair. Having a considerable amount accumulated over the summer subcutaneous fat allows you to experience this without any problems cold period lack of food.

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

In areas with a temperate continental climate, the echidna leads active image life regardless of the time of day. But in hot semi-deserts it goes hunting only at night, when the heat subsides. The organism of this creature tolerates extremely poorly increased performance heat due to the complete anatomical absence of sweat glands and low body temperature (30–32 ° C).
The “spiny anteater” is a solitary animal, capable of communicating with similar individuals only during the mating period. In everyday life, although these animals adhere to certain territory habitat, but do not wage internecine wars 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 classified as a waterfowl or water-loving animal, the animal swims quite well. If necessary, it 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 an overly secretive lifestyle.

Echidna food

The structural features of the oral cavity, in general, determined the diet of the echidna. Since the size of 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 animal reaches 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 in the “beak” allow them to find prey deep underground, under stones and tree stumps. The use of strong clawed paws and the agile, all-penetrating tongue of the animal successfully completes the job. When hunting for prey, the tongue of a bird beast is capable of “shooting” at a target with the frequency of machine gun fire - about 100 times per minute, penetrating to a depth of 18 centimeters.

In exceptional cases, the echidna can survive completely without food for a month, using its own reserves of subcutaneous fat.

Echidna Reproduction

The mating season for this wonderful animal 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 odor and leaves odorous marks-messages to the “suitors” using the cloaca.

The courtship of the males with the “bride” can last several weeks, ultimately ending with the mating of the winning male with the female, which occurs in a side-lying position. 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) of a beige-cream color and having a leathery shell.

As soon as the echidna lays its eggs somewhere in a secluded dry and warm place - a brood hole, it immediately moves them to its pouch. How she does this, without actually having a normal mouth size and perfect paws, zoologists cannot yet say convincingly. After the eggs are placed in the pouch, the female carefully carries them for another 10 days until the offspring appear.

Life and nursing of echidna cubs

The hatched cub, weighing only about 0.5 grams, independently moves to the front of the pouch to an area of ​​​​the skin called the milk field (in this area there are about 150 pores of the mammary glands), where it begins to feed on pink-colored (from excess iron content) echidna milk . Subsequently, it 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 has formed its own spines, and the mother releases it from the pouch into a previously prepared shelter hole.

Over the next four months, the grown-up echidna stays in this shelter, and the mother comes to feed her no more than once every 5–10 days. The independent life of 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 echidnas and methods of defense

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

A good sense of smell helps this prickly and rather harmless creature avoid danger, sharp vision and excellent hearing. Having discovered an enemy, the echidna always tries to leave unnoticed. If this fails, then it begins to simultaneously dig a hole with all four paws, instantly plunging deep into the ground and leaving its 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 animal, 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 curled-up echidnas by rolling them into water or rolling them on the ground for a long time and still managing to grab the belly unprotected by needles (when the muscle of the animal responsible for curling into a ball gets tired and the prickly ball opens slightly).

The spiny mammal often becomes a victim of Aboriginal hunters, who hunt it solely for its fat, which is considered a kind of delicacy by local tribes.

It may seem that such an unusual and exotic animal is poorly suited for the role pet. Actually this is not true. There are many examples of successful home care this thorn-bearer.

Of course, it’s not worth keeping such a creature in a limited area of ​​a city apartment or roaming freely around the house. This can easily seriously damage furniture and the interior of premises - this savage’s habit of turning over stones and digging up anthills in search of food is ineradicable.

Therefore, the optimal conditions for keeping an echidna are a spacious enclosure in front of the house or in the farm yard, which reliably protects the animal from cold, heat and overly intrusive visitors. Do not forget - the “spiny anteater” prefers loneliness. Which, however, does not exclude him from walking around the yard. The animal has an easy-going and peaceful character and gets along well with household members and other pets. Never behaves aggressively. The only thing that can suffer from his claws is your favorite flower garden or vegetable garden, which he will definitely check for the presence of something tasty.

As for the diet. At home, the bird beast is quite capable of doing without its favorite ants and termites. The echidna enjoys eating necessarily chopped hard-boiled eggs, fruits, bread, and also chopped meat. Especially loves milk and raw chicken eggs. Don't forget about the container with drinking water.

No effort is required on the owner’s part to care for the pet’s prickly skin. The animal is able to perform all the necessary manipulations independently.

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

More about the echidna, watch this video:

The Australian echidna is a representative of the monotreme order. This order also includes a very popular animal in Australia - the platypus. The habitat of the Australian echidna lies in the western and eastern parts the Australian mainland, as well as in New Guinea and Tasmania. Scientists divide echidnas into two genera. Within the genus there are three species. The first genus is called proechidna.

The second genus is divided into 2 types of echidnas - the Tasmanian echidna and the Australian echidna. The genus is called “true echidnas.” Species within the genus are distinguished depending on the habitat of these animals.

In appearance, the echidna vaguely resembles a porcupine. The echidna's body is covered with short, stiff hair, and there are also long spines of approximately 5 cm along the entire surface of the back.

The animal is a loner; the echidna does everything from a nesting site to searching for “hunting grounds” on its own. The main food for the animal is ants, termites and small invertebrates. The echidna catches prey with its tongue, which has a sticky surface. The prey is glued to the tongue and swallowed.

However, with the onset of the mating season, the animal’s lifestyle undergoes dramatic changes, which takes place in winter time. Animals rarely breed, about once every two or even three years. After fertilization, female echidnas lay eggs. More often - only one egg. It is noteworthy that echidnas do not hatch eggs in the traditional sense. They place the egg inside their pouch and carry it until the baby hatches.
Usually the offspring are born within 10 days. Echidnas feed their young with milk. However, this process is also very specific for them - they feed not with nipples, but through pores on the body, called the “milk field”.

From one and a half to two months the cub remains in the mother's pouch. After this, needles begin to appear on the baby’s body and the mother is forced to “evict” him from the bag. A caring mother “builds” a hole in the ground for her offspring, where they stay permanently. While the cubs are in a safe place, the mother goes hunting to get food for herself and her babies.

Male individuals live as hermits, occupying territory under their control only, which they carefully guard and consider to be their “hunting grounds.” Echidnas are also excellent swimmers.

The main “competitive advantage” of the animal is its excellent vision; they notice even the smallest movements nearby with amazing speed. It must be said that this is not an aggressive animal and, sensing something is wrong, the animal prefers to hide rather than enter into confrontation.

Echidna has a curious defense mechanism– it curls up into a ball and bristles with needles, resembling a hedgehog. However, this tangle can be “unwound”. The main enemies of the echidna are dingoes, foxes and monitor lizards. This, combined with the anthropogenic factor, has brought these creatures to the brink of extinction. In Australia this type listed as endangered.

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

The taxonomy of echidnas is quite confusing; some reference books say that there are 5 species. However, scientists now believe that there are only two echidnas - the 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 Bass Strait.

Despite the fact that the echidna is very widespread on the “fifth continent”, it is one of the most mysterious Australian animals. The echidna leads such a secretive lifestyle that many features of the biology of this animal are still unknown to researchers.

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

The fact is that this amazing big-nosed 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 hole at the back leading to the cloaca.

And the intestines, ureters, and genital tracts open into it. Based on this feature, the order of monotremes (Monotremata) was identified.

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 round egg.

The echidna and platypus also have a whole series 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 the chromosomes of reptiles and not found at all in other animals.

But outwardly, the echidna and the platypus are completely different. The 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 echidna’s neck is short, and its head ends in a long cylindrical “beak”.

Just like the platypus, the echidna’s “beak” 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 - the echidna's prey.

Such electroreceptors have not yet been discovered in any other mammals, except the echidna and the platypus.

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

The echidna's short and strong front legs are equipped with powerful curved claws, with which it tears apart termite mounds. Interestingly, these animals can swim well!

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

In search of food, she relies mainly on her sense of smell, and to escape from enemies - on her hearing. The echidna's brain is better developed than that of the platypus, and has large quantity convolutions

These animals, as already mentioned, live very secretively. So much so that, for example, the reproductive characteristics 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 spiny 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, feeding and resting together. Moving from place to place, animals follow each other in single file, forming something like a caravan. At the head of the caravan there is always a female, behind her is the largest of the males, and the chain is completed by the smallest and, as a rule, the youngest animal.

Outside the mating season, echidnas lead a solitary lifestyle, and for a long time It remained a mystery how males find females during the breeding season. It turned out that chemical signals play a major role in this process - during the mating season, the animals emit a very strong musky odor.

After about a month life together the echidnas that make up the group decide to move on to more serious relationship. More and more often, one or the other male, and sometimes several, immediately begin to touch the female’s tail with their snouts and carefully sniff her body.

If the female is still not ready to mate, she curls up into a tight, spiky ball, and this position cools the ardor of her gentlemen for some time. The female echidna, who has come into heat, on the contrary, relaxes and freezes, and then the males begin to dance around her in a kind of round dance, throwing lumps of earth aside.

After some time, a real trench 18–25 cm deep will form around the female - people have been racking their brains for a long time over the origin of these strange circles on Australian soil!

But let's return to the echidna wedding ceremony. At some point, the largest male turns his head towards the next one and tries to push him out of the trench. The pushing competition continues until there is only one winning male left in the trench.

Finding himself 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 of the male pressing the opening of his cloaca to the female’s cloaca, frozen in love ecstasy.

21–28 days after this, the female, having retired to a special brood hole, lays a single egg. It's as small as a platypus egg and only weighs about 1.5g - the same as a pea! No one has ever seen how an echidna moves an egg from the cloaca to a pouch on its 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 pouch.

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

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

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 a hatched echidna are rudimentary and hidden under the skin, and the hind legs are practically undeveloped. But the front paws already have well-defined toes and even transparent claws.

It is with the help of the forelimbs that the small echidna moves from the back of the pouch to the front, in about 4 hours, to where the area called the milk field, or areola, is located. In this area, 100–150 individual 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 baby squeezes these hairs with its mouth, food enters its stomach - although previously it was believed that it simply licks off the secreted milk.

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

Echidnas feed mainly on ants and termites, which they get by tearing them apart with their powerful claws earth and termite mounds. These animals do not disdain other insects and earthworms. And although the echidna has no teeth, there are horny teeth on the back of its tongue 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, which, when they enter the stomach, serve as millstones for the final grinding of prey - similar to what happens in birds.

The baby echidna remains in the mother's pouch for about 50 days - by this age it simply no longer fits there and, in addition, it develops spines. After this, the mother leaves him in the hole and comes to feed him once every 5–10 days - but the amount of milk that the cub receives during one such feeding is about 20% of his body weight!

This continues for almost another 5 months. In total, the feeding process takes almost 200 days. Therefore, the echidna can only reproduce once a year. But low speed reproduction is compensated for by a long life expectancy in these animals.

The reliably known record of longevity of an echidna in the wild is 16 years, and in 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, since the Australian echidna has no special requirements for its habitat, other than a sufficient amount of food.

Echidnas tolerate captivity well, but practically 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 1992 AUD 200 commemorative coin. Millie the Echidna was one of the summer mascots olympic games 2000 in Sydney.

• Class: Mammalia Linnaeus, 1758 = Mammals
• Infraclass: Prototheria = Cloacal, primal beast, oviparous
• Order Monotremata Bo naparte, 1838 = Monotreme oviparous
• Family: Tachyglossidae Gill, 1872 = Echidnovidae

Family: Tachyglossidae Gill, 1872 = Echidnovidae

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 oviparous mammals. However, the subclass of proto-beasts, the order of monotremes, includes not only the platypus, but also another, no less interesting, but much less studied animal - the echidna. The taxonomy of echidnas is quite confusing; some reference books say that there are 5 species. However, now scientists believe that there are only two echidnas - the proechidna (Zaglossus bruijni), which lives in New Guinea, and the echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), common in Australia and Tasmania. It is about the Australian echidna that our story today will go.

Genus: Tachyglossus Illiger, 1811 = Echidna

Despite the fact that the echidna is very widespread on the “fifth continent”, it is one of the most mysterious Australian animals. The echidna leads such a secretive lifestyle that many features of the biology of this animal are still unknown to researchers.

European scientists first 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), wrote a description of this animal, mistakenly classifying it as an anteater. The fact is that this amazing big-nosed 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 the echidna and the platypus - both of these animals have only one hole at the back leading to the cloaca. And the intestines, ureters, and genital tracts open into it. Based on this feature, the order of monotremes (Monotremata) was identified.

But in addition to the presence of a cloaca, echidnas and platypuses have another 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 round egg.

The echidna and the platypus also 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 the chromosomes of reptiles and not found at all in other animals.

But in appearance, the echidna and the platypus are completely different. The 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 echidna’s neck is short, and its head ends in a long cylindrical “beak”. Just like the platypus, the echidna's "beak" is a very sensitive structure. Its skin contains both mechanoreceptor cells and special electroreceptors. They perceive subtle changes electromagnetic field, arising during the movement of small animals - the echidna's prey. Such electroreceptors have not yet been discovered in any other mammals, except the echidna and the platypus.

The mouth opening is located at the end of the echidna's beak. It is very tiny, but the animal’s mouth contains 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 reproductive characteristics of echidnas remained unknown until very recently. Only 12 years ago, 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, feeding and resting together. Moving from place to place, animals follow each other in single file, forming something like a caravan. At the head of the caravan there is always a female, behind her is the largest of the males, and the chain is completed by the smallest and, as a rule, the youngest animal. Outside of the mating season, echidnas lead a solitary lifestyle, and for a long time it remained a mystery how males find females during the breeding season. It turned out that chemical signals play a major role in this process - during the mating season, the animals emit a very strong musky odor.

After about a month of living together, the echidnas that make up the group decide to move on to a more serious relationship. More and more often, one or the other male, and sometimes several, immediately begin to touch the female’s tail with their snouts and carefully sniff her body. If the female is still not ready to mate, she curls up into a tight, spiky ball, and this position cools the ardor of her gentlemen for some time. The female echidna, who has come into heat, on the contrary, relaxes and freezes, and then the males begin to dance around her in a kind of round dance, throwing lumps of earth aside. After some time, a real trench 18-25 cm deep will form around the female - people have been racking their brains for a long time over the origin of these strange circles on Australian soil!

But let's return to the echidna wedding ceremony. At some point, the largest male turns his head towards the next one and tries to push him out of the trench. The pushing competition continues until there is only one winning male left in the trench. Finding himself 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 of the male pressing the opening of his cloaca to the female’s cloaca, frozen in love ecstasy.

21-28 days after this, the female, having retired to a special brood hole, lays a single egg. It's as small as a platypus egg and only weighs about 1.5g - the same as a pea! No one has ever seen how an echidna moves an egg from the cloaca to a pouch on its 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 pouch.

A brood burrow is a warm, dry chamber often dug under an anthill, termite mound, or even a pile of garden debris near 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, it has to break the dense three-layer shell of the egg - for this purpose a special horny bump on the nose is used, an analogue of the egg tooth in birds and reptiles. 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 a hatched echidna are rudimentary and hidden under the skin, and the hind legs are practically undeveloped. But the front paws already have well-defined toes and even transparent claws. It is with the help of the forelimbs that the small echidna moves from the back of the pouch to the front, in about 4 hours, to where the area called the milk field, or areola, is located. In this area, 100-150 individual 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 baby squeezes these hairs with its mouth, food enters its stomach - although previously it was believed that it simply licks off the secreted milk.

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

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, there are horny teeth on the back of its tongue 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.

The baby echidna remains in the mother's pouch for about 50 days - by this age it simply no longer fits there and, in addition, it develops spines. After this, the mother leaves him in the hole and comes to feed him once every 5-10 days - but the amount of milk that the cub receives during one such feeding is about 20% of his body weight! This continues for almost another 5 months. In total, the feeding process takes almost 200 days. Therefore, the echidna can only reproduce once a year. But the low reproduction rate of these animals is compensated by a long life expectancy. The reliably known record of longevity of an echidna in the wild is 16 years, and in the Philadelphia Zoo one echidna lived for 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)

European scientists first 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), wrote a description of this animal, mistakenly classifying it as an anteater. The fact is that this amazing big-nosed 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 the echidna and the platypus - both of these animals have only one hole at the back leading to the cloaca. And the intestines, ureters, and genital tracts open into it. Based on this feature, the order of monotremes (Monotremata) was identified.

Appearance

Echidnas look like a small porcupine, as they are covered with coarse hair and quills. The maximum body length is approximately 30 cm (Fig. 3). Their lips are beak-shaped. The echidna's limbs are short and quite strong, with large claws, thanks to which they can dig well. The echidna has no teeth and a small mouth. 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 tongues to the roof of their mouth.

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

Muscular system

The echidna's musculature is quite peculiar. Thus, a special muscle panniculus carnosus, located under the skin and covering the entire body, allows the echidna to curl into a ball when in danger, hiding its stomach and exposing its spines. The echidna's muzzle and tongue muscles are highly specialized. Her tongue can protrude 18 cm from her mouth (its full length reaches 25 cm). It is covered with mucus to which ants and termites stick. Protrusion of the tongue is ensured by contraction of the orbicularis muscles, which change its shape and push it forward, and two geniohyoid muscles, which are attached to the root of the tongue and lower jaw. The protruding tongue becomes stiffer due to rapid influx blood. Its retraction is ensured by two longitudinal muscles. The tongue is able to move with 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 echidna's brain is better developed than that of the platypus and has more convolutions.

Until recently, it was believed that the echidna - only mammal who doesn't dream. However, in February 2000, scientists from the University of Tasmania found that the sleeping echidna goes through a phase of paradoxical sleep, but it depends on temperature environment. At 25°C, the echidna exhibited a GFD phase, but as the temperature increased or decreased, it shortened or disappeared.

Lifestyle and nutrition

This is a terrestrial animal, although if necessary it is capable of swimming and crossing fairly large bodies of water. The echidna is found in any landscape that provides it with enough food - from rain forests to dry bush and even deserts. It is found in mountainous areas, where there is snow part of the year, on agricultural lands, and even in the suburbs of the capital. The echidna is active mainly during the day, but hot weather forces it to switch to night look life. The echidna is poorly adapted to heat, since it does not have sweat glands, and its body temperature is very low - 30-32°C. When it's hot or cold weather she becomes lethargic; when it gets very cold, it goes into hibernation for up to 4 months. Subcutaneous fat reserves allow her to fast for a month or more if necessary.

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

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

Echidnas are home to one of the largest fleas, Bradiopsylla echidnae, which reaches a length of 4 mm.

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

Pregnancy lasts 21-28 days. The female builds a brood burrow, a warm, dry chamber often dug under an empty anthill, termite mound, or even under a pile of garden debris near human habitation. Typically, a clutch contains one leathery egg with a diameter of 13-17 mm and weighing only 1.5 g.

For a long time, it remained a mystery how the echidna moves the egg from the cloaca to the brood pouch - its mouth is too small for this, and its paws are clumsy.

Presumably, when putting it aside, the echidna deftly curls up into a ball; in this case, the skin on the abdomen forms a fold that secretes sticky liquid. When frozen, she glues the egg that has rolled out onto her stomach and at the same time gives the bag its shape (Fig. 4).

Brood pouch of a female echidna

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

Young echidnas grow very quickly, increasing their weight by 800-1000 times in just two months, that is, up to 400 g. The cub remains in the mother's pouch for 50-55 days - until the age when it develops spines. After this, the mother leaves him in the shelter and until the age of 5-6 months comes to feed him once every 5-10 days. In total, milk feeding lasts 200 days. Between 180 and 240 days of life, the young echidna leaves the burrow and begins to lead 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.

Population status and conservation

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