For readers NOT in Australia: Can you guess what this animal is? It's not a hedgehog or a porcupine. (By the way, the animal pictured in the previous post was a Southern hairy-nosed wombat.) For extra points, what is the tube thing in the middle, and what is very special about this creature?For readers in Melbourne, here is my speaking schedule for the next few days:
An echidna?
ReplyDeleteMy daughter the animal lover says that it is an echidna
ReplyDeleteMy daughter the animal lover says that it is an echidna
ReplyDeleteThe tube is his snout, and Wikipedia tells me that it and the platypus are the only living mammals that lay eggs.
ReplyDeleteEchidna?
ReplyDeleteechidna
ReplyDeleteit is egg-laying mammals
ReplyDeleteAbilene?
ReplyDeleteEchidna
ReplyDeleteעטלף
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DeleteLet me guess this one: It's a long-beaked echidna, otherwise known as a spiny anteater.
ReplyDeleteI got the wombat right in the previous post. I have fond memories of the wombat. When I was in junior high school, we had to do research on women's rights, suffrage, etc. Well, every encyclopedia we used had "Wombat" as the entry just before "Women". So, we got to know them very well (even though I've never held one).
For those interested in the evolution of this creature, see
ReplyDeletehttps://www.livescience.com/5746-odd-egg-laying-mammals-exist.html
Echidna! That's his snout. :==)
ReplyDeleteIt is a monotreme. It is homeothermic (not poikilothermic like reptiles). Genetically it has both mammalian and reptilian sex chromosomes (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14667850).
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the euchidna, but the platypus is technically not a mammal, (cannot be called an egg laying mammal) since although it secretes a milk substance for feeding its young, this secretion is not via a nipple, so it cannot "suckle" its young.
http://wildcare.org.au/species-information/echidnas/
I suppose it to be an echidnea and the tube is beak, this animal is a member of the monotrema like the platipus.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the euchidna, but the platypus is technically not a mammal, (cannot be called an egg laying mammal) since although it secretes a milk substance for feeding its young, this secretion is not via a nipple, so it cannot "suckle" its young.
ReplyDeleteSource please? This seems wrong. Both the Echidna and the Platypus are mammals.
Here is the definition from Wikipedia: Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia (/məˈmeɪli.ə/ from Latin mamma "breast"), a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles (including birds) by the possession of a neocortex (a region of the brain), hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. Females of all mammal species nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands.
THey are mammals - with the platypus they are the only members of the subclass monotremata. The name monotreme refers to another unique characteristic for mammals, that they have only one opening, a cloaca, into which the urinary, defecatory, and reproductive systems (in the female) all open. The penis carries only semen, not urine
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