Fort Wayne Children's Zoo

Open Daily
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Echidna

Scientific Name:	Tachyglossus aculeatus
Range:	Australia
Habitat:	Rain forests, deserts, swamps, and bush areas
Natural Diet:	Ants, termites, worms, grubs, and small invertebrates
Zoo Diet:	Canned meat and leaf eater diet that is mixed into a liquid “shake”
Physical Characteristics:	Echidnas weigh an average of five to thirteen pounds and are about a foot long. Long, thick, pointed spines mixed with coarse, brown hair cover their round bodies. Echidnas have a tubular beak, no teeth, and weak jaws. They grab insects by extending their long, sticky tongue six to seven inches beyond the tip of their snout. The claws and beak are used to dig into nests of termites and ants to find food.
Behavior:	Echidnas are solitary animals that are active both at night and during the day. Even though they have poor eyesight, they may travel great distances by relying on a keen sense of smell and good hearing. These almost silent animals walk in a rolling, waddling way. They hide under thick bushes, piles of debris, and in hollow logs. Echidnas curl into a ball of spines if frightened or burrow straight down if they are in soft soil. If flipped over on their back, they will use their spines to flip back right-side up.
Reproduction:	Echidnas are one of the few mammals that lay eggs. A dime sized, leathery-shelled egg is laid directly into a temporary pouch of the mother. After ten days, a helpless, half-inch inch long offspring hatches. The young, called a puggle, leaves its mother’s pouch after several weeks when it begins to grow spines.
Notes:	Echidnas may live 50 years or more. Echidnas are described as having a beak of a bird, spines of a hedgehog, eggs like a reptile, the pouch of a marsupial, and the life span of an elephant. At the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, you can see an echidna in the Australia After Dark exhibit.