View allAll Photos Tagged echidna
This echidna was waddling restlessly on the ground of the aviary for tropical birds, sticking his nose into every pockmark in the concrete floor hoping for insects. Not much later, the keeper came by with his lunch which he enjoyed very much.
Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae 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. Wikipedia
We saw two while walking in the weetootla creek and some fresh diggings, indicating perhaps that echidna have survived the drought etter than larger animals. As soon as they saw us they characteristically got to work digging straight downwards into the earth.
The scenery around Eden is quite spectacular however some of the local natives are a bit prickly.
Whilst this particular local was a juvenile he/she certainly knew how to go into defensive mode when I approached.
Eden, New South Wales, Australia.
The echidna is one of only two species of mammals that lay eggs (the other is the platypus). This one made an unexpected appearance at Shelly Beach, near Manly. Naturally it created quite a stir!
The echidna and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals. They live in Australia and New Guinea. The female lays a single egg and deposits it in her pouch. The slender snout functions both as mouth and nose.
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Echidna - Kangaroo Island, Australia
"Echidnas are small, 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 have elongated and slender snouts which 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-billed echidna has only 2,000, and the short-billed echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 located at the tip of its snout. They have very short, strong limbs with large claws, and are powerful diggers. Echidnas have tiny mouths and toothless jaws. The echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and using its long, sticky tongue, which protrudes from its snout, to collect prey"
"Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes. The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg 22 days after mating, and deposits it directly into her pouch. Hatching takes place after 10 days; the young echidna then sucks milk from the pores of the two milk patches (monotremes have no nipples) and remains in the pouch for 45 to 55 days, at which time it starts to develop spines. The mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the young, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months."
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I found this beauty working the behind-the-beach track near Cape Schanck late this Afternoon. After initially turning into a ball it relaxed (as I retreated to give it space) and granted me a few candid photo moments as it continued foraging.
Should have been in shutter priority... ran out of light and 1/100th was barely enough to freeze motion as it suddenly crossed the path. They can move quite quickly when they choose to!
I did put this selection up months ago and received some very kind reviews on them. However, the OCD in me feels that was possibly a lot more to do with the brilliant scenery than the standard of processing, as it was before purchasing Lightroom, and I'm now starting to see that bit extra one can achieve from a RAW image than a JPG.
So thought I'd share again (since I'm redoing the relevant pages in the photobook I was working on and consequently, temporarily, gave up on), if for no other reason than to show some newbies the difference (as it has taken me about 3 years to get around to the RAW side of the fence, and even now only when I feel a special image calls for it!)
I had a nice afternoon here, sadly bird free except for dozens of wrens. Then I'm walking back to the car and this guy is just three meters off the track. It took ages to photograph, as soon as he got confident someone would walk past and he'd hide his head underground for another few minutes. By the time he'd become used to me and I'd got this shot, I wanted to take him home.
Wanderung zum Lake Skinner, die erste Ueberraschung war dieser Ameisenigel, er war am Wegrand auf Nahrungssuche.
Die Ameisenigel (Tachyglossidae), auch als Schnabeligel oder Echidna bezeichnet, sind eine Familie eierlegender Säugetiere. Sie bilden mit dem Schnabeltier die Ordnung der Kloakentiere (Monotremata), sie sind mit diesen die einzigen verbliebenen Säugetiere, die ihre Nachkommen nicht lebend gebären. Die Familie wird in zwei Gattungen mit insgesamt vier Arten unterteilt, den Kurzschnabeligel (Tachyglossus aculeatus) und die drei Arten der Langschnabeligel (Zaglossus). (Wikipedia)
Another shot of my little friend the Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) coming towards me. It really was quite unafraid of my presence which is unusal for these things, as they are usually very timid and roll into a 'hedgehog' type ball at the slightest movement.
I felt very privileged to be allowed so close for so long.
Scientific Name: Tachyglossus aculeatus
Fred found an Echidna. We don't see them very often and very rarely their little noses. We just look at them and say "How wonderful", take their photo and go on our way leaving them to their own pursuits. :-)
More information at Perth Zoo website
“Be the Light for the Wild” (Ample Projects)
“Vivid’s wildest precinct will light up with an illuminated trail comprised of giant animal multimedia light sculptures at Taronga Zoo, which is also celebrating its Centenary in 2016.
“‘Be the Light for the Wild’ will feature ten critical species from Australia and Sumatra, ranging from the magnificent Asian elephant to the brightly coloured Corroboree frogs, species that Taronga is committed to protecting.
“Created by Ample Projects, with interactive lighting, sound effects and moving parts, these giant light sculptures will be among the largest and most technologically advanced lanterns ever to feature in Vivid.
“Taronga’s 10 Legacy Species light sculptures will be augmented by a supporting cast of creatures including an echidna, chameleon, crocodile, cicadas and even a funnel-web spider, along with thousands of smaller lanterns made by NSW school students as part of the Zoo’s Centenary celebrations.
“Vivid Sydney at Taronga Zoo is part of an exciting Centenary Program presented by ANZ, which will celebrate Taronga’s first 100 years and launch a legacy for the future of wildlife conservation.”
Today's objective was to provide assistance with the study and management of echidnas in the Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve. Basically, I was a body for hire with a pair of eyes conducting an "echinda sweep".
The process is pretty simple at this level — assemble a group of people in a line with roughly equal spacing and then walk a transect. When you find an echidna, yell ECHIDNA, have it logged, checked off against the chart of known animals from the previous sweep and marked with some nail varnish on a quill. Echidnas are perfect for this strategy. When discovered they freeze, bristle up and wait for you to go away. Then repeat this cycle. This one had been found previously, hence the quills of many colours effect and the shiny new red quill at the back of its head. Well, simple enough except that not all volunteers get the concept of walking a transect and sampling along it. Instead they wandered about crossing over multiple transects in their meanderings. Fun fact: the word meander comes from a river in Turkey which wanders about a bit.
Because I was a volunteer with a mission I had no dedicated camera etc and so this poor photo of a dark creature against a bright, baked soil typical of Mulligans Flat is the best we can do. Nevermind. You can see the beak, as its snout is called, its teeny weeny eyes, those powerful digging feet it uses to rip into ant and termite nests and its wonderful spines.
There are something over fifty echidnas in the Reserve. That doesn't sound uncommon and they are not. What is exceptional is that they represent just one of three genera within the taxonomic order Monotremata. They are mammals and unusually for mammals they are egg laying. This is a short beaked echidna, the sole species in the Tachyglossus genus.
Why give up your Saturday to spend it in the bush with a bunch of odd-bods, some of whom cannot walk a transect? Start with the most obvious. You're spending it in the bush. Whether your time was well-spent isn't important. The information collected may help to manage the echidna population, or just provide project material for student ecologists and wildlife managers. The thing is, you did something to help! Can everyone confidently say they have contributed to leaving the world a better place?
Apart from not taking a camera my normal outdoor kit would include binoculars and a hand lens. Not this time. My focus was to look for echidnas. Nevertheless, a flying pair of the bush stone curlews which were introduced into the Reserve after becoming locally extinct were obvious and a delight. With borrowed binoculars I saw white-winged trillers, a first, and had many naked-eye encounters with other birds, two species of wallaby, eastern grey kangaroos, bettongs and shingle back lizards. The tiny lerp insects whose carbohydrate-rich shelter many birds harvest were discernible on leaves and the soil was riddled with large spider holes. This was flogged-out grazing land over a skeletal soil. There is precious little topsoil, hence the poor lighting in this image from the relected light off the dry, baked clay. But little guys like this echidna recycle nutrients. Their poop is mostly grains of sand and clay enriched with leftover ant and termite bits. The bettongs make their living by digging for fungi and in so doing leave little pits which collect debris and rain water, both improving the soil. These little gardeners are food for the reintroduced eastern quolls and so their nutrients are concentrated and recycled.
The Reserve is recovering and the adjacent land is being enclosed to allow for the clearing and exclusion of vermin. The ecological experiment of habitat restoration, removal and exclusion of introduced predators and reintroduction of locally extinct species is working. Quite wonderfully you are free to walk here, ride your bicycle and even count echidnas while all of this goes on around you. Volunteer! Or just get into Nature. You know you want to.