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The Echidna Is Australia’s Most Delightfully Different Mammal
- bitwize 4y ago> The evolutionary marvel mates in love trains, can swim in the ocean, and even uses jazz hands as a defensive tactic. This strapline is bound to generate some... interesting Knuckles fan art. I had the good fortune of seeing a female echidna, licking honey from a bowl held by a caretaker, at the Australia Zoo shortly before departing. They are truly fascinating critters, cute in their own way.
- hunglee2 4y agothey are quite common in Australia, saw a few earlier this year, by the roadside just rooting around in the grass. Don't seem to be too scared of humans either, I couldn't easily stooped and picked it up. Nice lads
- hnick 4y agoWe found one on a track near Willoughby Falls in Sydney and it didn't seem to care about our dog either. We kept our distance obviously, but it was in no hurry as it slowly ambled off the track.
- hunglee2 4y agoyeah they are adorably unbothered by us!
- jmprspret 4y agoWhat parts of Australia? I don't think I've ever seen a wild around Queensland. Then again, I am in a bit more of an urban area. I still see possums and wallabys quite often though.
- hunglee2 4y agosaw one on a verge in NSW. In a park for sure, but not exactly wilderness!
- brian_herman 4y agoFamous echidna in gaming: https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Knuckles_the_Echidna https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Knuckles_the_Echidna
- dymk 4y agoFun science fact: the echidnas’ internal monologue is in the voice of Idris Elba.
- plaguepilled 4y ago'Here I come, rougher than the rest of them, The best of them, tougher than leather' - Sun Tsu, probably
- UIUC_06 4y agoGreat article. Australia has the best animals. Even a mammal with an extremely painful venomous sting (the platypus), a pain that's not relieved by morphine. And the Tasmanian Devil, one of the nastiest looking little creatures on 4 legs I've ever seen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoNasty? No! They're adorable. I advocate for their domestication to anyone who'll listen. They're known to be very tame and friendly with in a short duration of repeated human closeness. Sure, an adult Devil could bite your hand off, but so can a dog, and Devils tend to prefer already dead things.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoare you talking about domesticating a Tasmanian Devil or a Platypus?
- mc32 4y agoIt seems clear they’re advocating for ‘devils.
- AlbertCory 4y agoOK, well, each to his own. Everything in Oz can kill you anyway :) My "contact" was limited to watching one run around and around his cage at some zoo or animal preserve. He certainly looked plenty pissed off.
- yarg 4y ago> run around and around his cage > He certainly looked plenty pissed off. Wouldn't you?
- AlbertCory 4y ago
- oblak 4y agoI just realized I hadn't heard/read that word - echidna - in about three decades. The downfalls of not watching TV I suppose. Looking at the pictures, they seem to be cute little critters. Wonder if it would be possible to befriend one
- schwartzworld 4y agoSince the last time you played a Sonic the Hedgehog game?
- telman17 4y agoI love the echidna. I did a science project on it in 5th grade. My mom helped me do a clay sculpture of it and I remember having a blast putting in all the “spines”. Was also an avid og sonic the hedgehog player so it seemed like these little guys were everywhere during that time.
- salty_biscuits 4y agoThey are super cute and I always get a kick whenever I see one on a walk. No idea why they are named after "the mother of monsters", early Europeans must have been on another planet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna_(mythology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna_(mythology)
- markdown 4y agoPlease don't kid these creatures. They're harmless.
- salty_biscuits 4y ago"Get a kick" = "enjoy", not a literal kick.
- markdown 4y agoI forget I'm not on Reddit, where my silliness would have gotten upvotes.
- salty_biscuits 4y agoHaha, yes I thought so but my experience on hn is any humor gets misread so just felt like I needed to clarify in case anyone thought I was a monster who goes around punting monotremes.
- elromulous 4y agoThank you Sega for introducing me to the Echidna (sonic & knuckles)
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoHere in Tasmania I've stopped a few times to shoo them off the road, most effective way to date has been to wrap a towel around one and drag it. They don't seem to enjoy that very much at all, but I figure they enjoy being driven over less.
- tus666 4y agoWtf is this doing on obscura? You are acting like they are extinct or extremely rare. They are very common in certain areas. They are fun to flip over.
- actionfromafar 4y agoPlease don't do that. They don't like it.
- martyvis 4y agoSure, we have come across them within a kilometre from my home. But 99.9% of the world don't live where echidnas are, and they have very distinct anatomy and habits
- crotho 4y ago
- yawnxyz 4y agoI love those little dudes! I just moved to Sydney and saw them at the Taronga zoo... and I'd never even heard of one before. Strangest little creatures.
- paranoidrobot 4y agoIf you've just moved to Sydney, then there's a reasonably good chance of spotting them if you live outside of the city itself and walk around near bushland. The /r/sydney subreddit is regularly full of reports of people spotting them when the Echidnas are more active during mating season.
- Humphrey 4y agoWas once [ignorantly] trying to help encourage an echidna to get off a busy road next to my house, but it burrowed down into the cement curb gutter. It managed to use its quills to hold onto the cement, and there was not a chance of moving it. I couldn't believe how strongly it could hold onto what I thought as smooth cement.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoAs I commented elsewhere here, my current method is to get a towel around them and drag. Might have to wait a few metres away for a few minutes, see if they continue in away from the road.
- sundvor 4y agoNice work. A towel, that is is just about the most massively useful thing isn't it!
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoI see where you're going with this ;)
- SulphurCrested 4y agoThey're even different sexually. Last year I learned from the mainstream media that echidna penises have four glans (heads). Researchers from the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland and Monash University studied the structure. An article [0] in Melbourne Uni's magazine gives a technical overview and refers to the peer-reviewed paper [1]. They only use two at a time. The researchers speculate that two can rest while the other two are in use, outcompeting proto-echidnas with fewer glans. On a sad note, the research studied echidnas injured in road accidents, handed in to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on the Gold Coast, that had been euthanised. I imagine the numbers available are the result of the rapid urbanisation in the area. [0] https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/solving-the-mystery-of-the-four-headed-echidna-penis https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/solving-the-mystery-... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33915542/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33915542/