Echidna || Description, Characteristics and Facts!
Channel: Animals Descriptions
Date: 2021-03-10

Echidnas (/ɪˈkɪdnəz/), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae /tækiˈɡlɒsɪdiː/ in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. The four extant species of echidnas and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs and the only surviving members of the order Monotremata. The diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not closely related to the true anteaters of the Americas, which are xenarthrans, along with sloths and armadillos. Echidnas live in Australia and New Guinea.

Echidnas evolved between 20 and 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like monotreme. This ancestor was aquatic, but echidnas adapted to life on land.

Echidnas are medium-sized, solitary mammals covered with coarse hair and spines.

Superficially, they resemble the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines. They are usually black or brown in colour. There have been several reports of albino echidnas, their eyes pink and their spines white. They have elongated and slender snouts that function as both mouth and nose. Like the platypus, they are equipped with electrosensors, but while the platypus has 40,000 electroreceptors on its bill, the long-beaked echidna has only 2,000. The short-beaked echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 at the tip of its snout.

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00:00  Echidna
00:40  Physical characteristics
02:03 Anatomy

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