The Life of Animals | Echidna | Echidnas are small, solitary Mammals covered with coarse hair and spines. 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, the which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 located at the tip of its snout. Echidnas have a tiny mouth and a Toothless jaw. The Echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and using its long, sticky tongue, the which protrudes from its snout, to collect prey. The short-beaked Echidna's diet consists largely of ants and Termites, while the Zaglossus species typically eats worms and insect larvae. Long-beaked echidnas have sharp, tiny spines on Their Tongues That Their help capture 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-ing, and deposits it directly into her pouch. The average wild echidna can grow as old as 16 years. Male echidnas have a four-headed penis.
The heads used are swapped each time the mammal copulates. Contrary to previous research, the Echidna does enter REM sleep, albeit only the ambient temperature is around 25 ° C (77 ° F). Molecular clock dating and fossil echidnas suggest platypuses split from 19-48 million years ago.
