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Area: Australia, Tasmania, and Indonesia, Papua New Guinea
Habitat: Scrubland, desert, and forest
Food: Ants, termites, and earthworms
Size: 14 to 30 inches long, depending on the species
Babies: A baby echidna, called a puggle, crawls into the mother’s pouch after hatching from an egg.
The echidna is one of two egg-laying mammals. The other is the platypus.
Spiny Stranger
Echidnas (say “ee-KID-nahz) are marsupials like koalas and kangaroos. These animals were named for a mythological monster, but they are shy, peaceful creatures. Another name for an echidna (say “ee-KID-nah”) is spiny anteater—and that’s exactly what it is and does!
Although it has fur, too, what you first see covering an echidna are dangerous-looking spines. The quills are hollow, and each has a sharp, barbed point. But the echidna doesn’t have quills on its nose or underside. If a predator flips this prickly prey over, the echidna tucks into a ball with its nose to its belly to keep its soft parts safe.
An echidna’s long snout gives it a good sense of smell. When it sniffs out a meal, the animal uses its long claws to dig the food out. Then it licks the ants up with its long tongue. An echidna has no teeth. Instead it grinds its meal against the roof of its mouth before swallowing.
Echidnas are born without quills, so it doesn’t hurt the mother when the puggle is in her pouch. When the spines grow in, the puggle leaves the pouch.