MONOTREMES--The Echidna

This unusual category of mammals has only three members: The Platypus, the Short-beaked Echidna of Australia, and the Long-beaked Echidna of New Guinea. All have only one ("mono") orifice, which is used for excretion, mating, and egg-laying. The Short-beaked Echidna has a pouch; the Platypus does not. The Echidna’s “quills” are sharp spines, each formed from a single hair, with fur growing between them. When threatened, it will curl into a ball of bristles or put its head down and start digging with its strong claws, burying itself within moments. If you run over an echidna you end up with multiple holes in your “tyre” and it cannot be fixed. Though very nearsighted, God equipped the echidna with a great sense of smell/electrical sensitivity which can sniff out a dinner of ants and termites through many inches of sun-hardened earth. This mammal lays a soft-shelled egg which she incubates in her pouch for two weeks until it hatches. The tiny young is naked, blind, and has undeveloped back limbs. It uses its forelimbs to drag itself to its mother’s belly where it suckles on a patch oozing pink-colored milk. The pink color is actually from hemoglobin since the tiny baby can’t store iron in its body. The baby stays in the pouch until its "spikes" develop and then is left in a nursery burrow. The mother returns to feed it every 5 to 10 days and it takes in 20% of its body weight at each feeding! The young echidna then leaves the burrow 6-8 weeks after hatching (remember these are egg laying mammals)