A Short-beaked echidna. Echidnas are truly UNIQUE creatures; they have spines, pouches, beaks, electroreceptors, no teeth, a long sticky tongue, and are monotremes; egg-laying mammals. The platypus is the only other egg-laying mammal.
Fun facts:
- Echidnas can swim.
- Echidnas have the slowest metabolism of any mammal and can live up to 45 years in the wild.
Echidnas are excellent diggers; they use their powerful claws to burrow and to dig up invertebrates. After uncovering the invertebrates they use their long sticky tongue to lick them up. Echidnas have electroreceptors that help them detect their surroundings.
When threatened, echidnas use their spines as a defense. They either curl up into a ball or dig into the soil so that only their spines are exposed. The short-beaked echidna is not considered endangered, but their cousins; both the eastern long-beaked echidna and the western long-beaked echidna are critically endangered.
Eye of the Wild Photography 