Echidnas are on the move. Disliking heat means they are now more active during the day. Our WILVOS 5441 6200 Hotline will be receiving many calls during the next few months. Such beautiful, harmless creatures, they can’t bite and have no poisonous spines. Size is no indication of their age.
When observed, echidnas are usually just casually trundling around. They are very intelligent animals with an enlarged neocortex, a high functioning part of the brain, compared with other mammals. In rearing echidnas I have been amazed at their capacity for hearing and memory, moving fast when they want to! They learn very quickly to respond when hearing a familiar voice or sound. Great problem solvers, as seen when Novak the echidna learned how to open my screen and glass doors. The video of his antics will still be on WILVOS Facebook page.
At this time of year, males will be searching out females with up to ten males waddling, or running, behind a female. She will only mate once with the fittest male – one doesn’t give up!
They have no obvious external sexual reproductive organs, the female only developing a pouch when needed. Twenty-three days after mating, she will curl up and deposit one egg in her pouch. These tiny eggs hatch just after 10 days and grow from 0.3 grams to 30 grams in 14 days. The puggle will be carried in her pouch for fifty days before being deposited in a burrow, where Mum will return ever 5 or 6 days to feed the young from her milk patch. There are no teats.
The young echidna has spines by six months and is weaned by 7 months. Then Mum opens up the entrance of the burrow and the young is on its own.
Donna Brennan Wildlife Volunteers Assoc Inc (WILVOS) PO Box 4805 Sunshine Coast Mail Centre Q 4560 PH 5441 6200 www.wilvos.org.au