THE ECHIDNA

Generic name : EchidnaScientific name : Tachyglossidae

By Tristan Reaburn-JonesFessenden Gr.6

Scientific Classification

• Kingdom: Animalia• Phylum: Chordata • Class: Mammalia• Order: Monotremata• Family: Tachyglossidae

Appearance

• echidna, small animal with course hair and spines (needles)

• short legs with large claws• small mouth with no teeth and a large

snout with a sticky tongue to catch ants

Habitat

• echidnas live in Australia in a range of habitats including highlands, forests and deserts

• some shelter they’ve been spotted in are rocks, fallen wood, caves and sometimes under bushes

Life Cycle• starts of as an egg, even though it is a mammal, echidnas are

one of the only egg-laying mammals, the egg hatches in its mother’s pouch for 10 days

• when it hatches it is jellybean sized and it drinks its mother’s milk• when its spines start to grow it moves into a burrow and its

mother feeds it in their for 6-7 months• after that, the echidna fends for itself• An echidna can live up to 16 years in the wild

Diet of Echidna

• the echidna feeds mostly on ants and termites, occasionally feeds on beetles and on other insects

Predators

• eagles, dingoes, and tasmanian devils are some of the echidnas predators

• the echidnas burrow into the ground when chased, if the echidna does not have time it curls into a ball and its spines protect them

How Echidnas Contribute to the Diversity of Life

• echidnas contribute to the diversity of life with the food chain

• echidnas provide food to its predators, and without the echidna their predators would have less food and less variety

• by eating insects, echidnas prevent Australia from having a humongous amount of termites and ants

How Humans Impact the Habitat of the Echidna

• humans impact the habitat of the echidna mostly with one way and that way is floods

• the floods usually happen when humans change their natural watercourses because of their activities

• echidnas can swim, but can’t survive floods

What Humans can do to help the Echidnas Survive

• some things that can be done to echidnas survive are…

• humans can be more careful with their water so they don’t flood the echidnas home

• humans can keep their pets away from echidnas so they don’t kill them

• humans can not interfere with echidnas and let them live alone in the wild

Interesting Fact• Ever heard of sonic? If you have, you probably know

he is hedgehog, but did you know his rival Knuckles is an echidna? Most people think he’s a porcupine because of his spines, but echidnas have spines too and Sony (the creators of Sonic) say that he is an echidna.

• there are two main types of echidna: sort beaked echidna and long beaked echidna

• echidnas are one of the two egg-laying mammals, platypuses are the other

• echidnas can lift twice its weight• a baby echidna is called a puggle

How Echidnas got its Name• the echidna got its name from the

Mother of all Monsters, Echidna • Echidna was from Greek mythology

and was half woman half snake and gave birth to almost all the monsters in Greek mythology. I still do not know why the Australians named the echidna after her though.

References

• wikipedia.com• australiananimals.net• Smithsonian Book of Animals by David

Burnie and Don E Wilson• echidna.edu• Strange Animals of Australia by National

Geographic Society