Why do echidnas have spikes

The active body temperature for an Echidna is only 33 degr C There are two species of echidna in the world. The long-beaked echidna Zaglossus bruijni lives only in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. The short-beaked echidna is found in Australia and southern New Guinea. The echidna looks kind of like a cross between an anteater and a porcupine or hedgehog.

The top of the body is covered with sharp spines. These are made of compressed hairs, just like your fingernails. There are regular, soft hairs in between these spikes. The belly is also covered with short, soft hairs. The mouth is simply an elongated tube, with no teeth. There is only a very short, vestigial tail. Adulte echidnas weigh from kg lb and are from 30 to 45 cm long in. Curled up, they are about the size of a basketball.

Echidnas are widespread in all Australian states including Tasmania. They have no particular habitat requirements, as long as there is a source of food. They can live anywhere from cold mountain peaks to arid desert regions. Echidnas have no fixed nest site, but will seek shelter in places like hollow logs, piles of brush, crevices and wombat or rabbit warrens.

They have no sweat glands and cannot pant to get rid of excess body heat, so they remain in shelters during the heat of the day, coming out at night to feed. Echidnas living in Tasmania have much longer body hairs in between their spikes, providing insulation from the cold. In extremely cold regions, such as the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, echidnas go into a state of dormancy. They can drop their body temperature to as low as 4 degr C They can remain in this state of hibernation for weeks at a time.

Echidnas eat only ants and termites; as they forage through ant and termite nests, they also ingest a large amount of nest material and soil, which makes up the bulk of their droppings. Echidnas prefer to eat termites over ants, especially queens and nymphs.

This is probably because termites live in larger colonies, and less of their body mass is made up of non-digestible exo-skeleton. They try to avoid the larger biting ants such as army ants, preferring the soft bodies of larvae, pupae, queen and winged ants.

Echidnas have an extremely specialized diet, which has probably helped to make them so successful. No other mammal in Australia eats ants and termites, so they have no competition for food. Echidnas have short muscular legs, with very long forefeet and very long sharp claws. These are used for burrowing into ant nests and termite mounds, and for turning over leaf litter and digging into rotten logs.

Echidnas can also be picked up when rolled into a ball with thick leather gloves to protect your hands. For those that are not experienced with handling echidnas, the use of a pair good quality leather gloves are strongly recommended. Alternatively, use a thick towel folded over and wrap this around the echidna to pick it up. Please note: unlike the platypus the echidna does not have a venomous spur. Common Reasons for Care Echidna in the yard.

Dogs often raise the alarm about an echidna in the yard. Echidnas are very quiet animals they do not vocalise at all and move around mostly at night. It is important that you contain your dog and leave the echidna to find its own way out of your yard. Generally, if it was able to get into your yard, then it will be able to find its way back out. Echidnas are very secretive animals so they will not move on until they feel that it is safe to do so.

If they sense any disturbance such as people or animals nearby , they will remain stationary and will not move on. If you feel confident to do so, you can pick the echidna up and move it out of your yard into nearby bushland, however it is vital that echidnas are NOT moved more than metres.

Remember that they have very strong home ranges and if a female, they may have a baby in a burrow nearby. Moving the echidna away from the area will be a death sentence to the baby. Any echidna that has been hit by a vehicle must come into care for a full veterinary assessment.

The most common injury found in road trauma echidnas is a fractured beak; this is not easily identifiable without an x-ray. Even if the echidna moves off the road itself, it could still have life-threatening injuries. If left untreated, they can suffocate or will starve to death as the receptors in their snout could be damaged and prevent them from locating food.

Any echidna that has been in contact with a dog must come into care and receive a full veterinary assessment. Because of their unique anatomical structure, it is difficult to determine if there are any injuries without a general anaesthetic.

Surprisingly it is not uncommon for dogs to pick an echidna up in their mouth and cause punctures to their skin, which are difficult to see through their spines and fur.

Emergency Hotline: 07 Member Login Coming Soon. This is thought to be one of the reasons why they live up to 50 years, according to National Geographic. Echidnas hibernate during the cold winter months in burrows.

Echidnas have no teeth and only eat termites, ants and other soil invertebrates. They particularly love beetle larvae, according to the Australian Zoo. Their strong claws help them break open logs to get to termites that they scoop up with their long tongues, which can reach up to 7 inches 18 cm long when extended. Echidnas typically breed between July and August. Mating for echidnas is quite unusual. Males have four-headed penises and the females have a two-branch reproductive tract.

Only two of the heads are active at a time. It is thought that the four heads help males produce more sperm and enables them to become more competitive against other males.

Sometimes, during hibernation, a male will come into a female's burrow and mate with her while she sleeps. She may wake up pregnant and not even know how she got that way, according to National Geographic. A female usually lays one egg at a time. The egg goes into a pouch on her stomach to incubate. After seven to 10 days, the egg is ready to hatch, according to the Animal Diversity Web.

When it hatches, a baby echidna, called a puggle, is about half an inch 12 millimeters long and weighs 0.