Echidnas

The spiny anteater, more correctly known as the echidna, has the following adaptations in order to find its food:

• A long tongue with sticky saliva, with which it eats termites and ants.
• A long snout which makes it easy for the echidna to burrow for ants, termites and worms.
• The echidna has sharp claws for digging, and this ability to dig effectively is helped by its compact, muscular body shape and strong forelegs. It commonly digs into termite nests to catch its food.

The proper name for the spiny anteater is echidna.

Echidnas are found throughout most of Australia, and are highly adaptable to a wide range of environments, which has been one of the reasons why they are not threatened by habitat loss. They live anywhere from bushland and woodlands, rocky areas as long as the soil is loose enough to dig, snowy mountains, sandy plains, heath, grasslands, semi-arid environments and deserts. Echidnas can be found wherever there are termites and ants.

In extreme weather they tend to stay in shelter, whether it be under rocks, within fallen trees or digging themselves into the ground.

The echidna found throughout Australia is the short-beaked echidna. It is also found in the lowlands of southeast New Guinea. The long-beaked echidna is a rarer species, found only in New Guinea. It ranges from low-level coastal regions to rainforests in mountainous areas.

"Spiny anteater" is a nickname for the echidna. They are not anteaters at all, but monotremes, or egg-laying mammals.

Echidnas are found throughout most of Australia, and are highly adaptable to a wide range of environments, which has been one of the reasons why they are not threatened by habitat loss. They live anywhere from bushland and woodlands, rocky areas as long as the soil is loose enough to dig, snowy mountains, sandy plains, heath, grasslands, semi-arid environments and deserts. Echidnas can be found wherever there are termites and ants.

Echidnas in the south of Australia are nocturnal, but northern echidnas can frequently be seen during the day. In extreme weather they tend to stay in shelter, whether it be under rocks, within fallen trees or digging themselves into the ground.

The long-beaked echidna is a rarer species, found only in New Guinea. It ranges from low-level coastal regions to rainforests in mountainous areas.

There are several differences between anteaters and spiny anteaters, better known as echidnas.

• Spiny anteaters are also known as echidnas and they are native to Australia, with another species found on the island of New Guinea, and they are distantly related to the platypus. True anteaters are native to South America and are related to armadillos.
• Like their name implies, spiny anteaters are covered covered with a layer of fur and many sharp quills, which are one of their main defenses. True anteaters are covereds in fur.
• Echidnas have a very wide range of habitat - they are able to live in deserts, grasslands, forests, suburban fringes, coastal heath, rainforest, mulga scrub, even sub-alpine mountainsides. Anteaters are restricted to grasslands, forests and rainforests.
• Echidnas are one of that unique group of mammals known as "monotremes", or egg-laying mammals (the platypus also belongs to this group). During breeding season, the female develops a rudimentary pouch, into which she lays a single egg, where it is incubated. Anteaters are placental mammals, giving birth to live young.
• The only two similarities between true anteaters and echidnas is 1. their diet, consisting mostly of termites, extending to ants, and occasionally to insect larvae. 2. Another similarity is that they are both mammals, i.e. warmblooded vertebrates which feed their young on mothers' milk.

No, echidnas reproduce sexually. However, female echidnas lack a vagina; instead, their urinary, defacatory, and reproductive systems all end in a single cloaca, much like that of a reptile (hence the term monotreme).

The mating ritual is quite bizarre. When a female is ready to mate, she lies flat on the ground with her front feet attached to a tree. Up to eight males at a time will circle the tree and the female on the ground, occasionally prodding her with their snouts while using their strong claws to slowly dig a deep trench around her. Upon completion of the trench, the males compete to push each other out of the trench, which by this time can be 20cm or so deep. The last male remaining is the "winner", mating with the female in a process which takes anywhere between one and five hours.

Around 21-28 days after mating, the female lays a single soft-shelled egg directly into her pouch for incubation. This pouch develops during breeding season, and is little more than a flap of skin. Once the newly hatched echidna begins to develop spines, it is deposited in a burrow. The young feed on mothers' milk, like all other mammals.