Echidna: Habitat

Summary: Join Kiersten as she takes a closer look at the habitats in which echidnas are found. 

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

 

Show Notes:

Short-beaked Echidna. Bush Heritage Australia, https://www.bushheritage.org.au

“Home Ranges, Movement, and Den Use in Long-Beaked Echidnas, Zaglossus Barton, From Papua New Guinea,” by Muse D.Opiang. Journal of Mammalogy, Volume 90,Issue 2, 14 April 2009, pages 340-346. https://doi.org/10.1644/08-MAMM-A-108.1

Eastern long-beaked echidna, Animalia, https://animlia.bio

Expedition Cyclops: https://www.expeditioncyclops.org/echidna

“How the echidna lost its venom,” by Verity Leatherdale, University of Sydney, 13 November 2013.

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

 

Transcript 

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

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Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

This episode continues echidnas and the second thing I like about this monotreme is their habitat. We talked a little bit about this in the first episode, but I want to dig a bit deeper into where each species is found. We know they are from Australia and surrounding areas but let’s look at exactly what kind of habitat they prefer.

The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeates) is Australia’s most widespread native mammal. It is common throughout most of temperate Australia and lowland New Guinea. They can be found in Tasmania, King Island, Flinders Island, and Kangaroo Island. 

Almost every kind of habitat can be home to these shy creatures. Snow-covered mountains, montane forests, desert habitat, and even urban environments are home to the short-beaked echidna. The main requirement for echidna friendly habitat is a way to help keep them sheltered in extreme weather. They also tend to favor areas with soil that’s easy to dig into, but they are great diggers so they can survive with tougher soil.

The eastern long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bartoni), also known as, Barton’s long-beaked echidna is found in New Guinea. It’  s found in the Central Cordillera and in Huon Peninsula. They inhabit tropical hill forests, sub-alpine forests, upland grasslands, and scrub. They are mainly found in the eastern half of New Guinea at elevations from 6,600 feet to 9,800 feet or 2 to 3 thousand meters. Some have even been seen as high as 13,000 feet or 4,100 meters. 

This species of echidna has long, dense fur with spines sprinkled throughout. Their thick fur helps keep them warm in colder weather. They have five long claws on their front feet and four on their back feet. These echidnas lack a tail, unlike the short-beaked echidna. According to a scientific study published in the Journal of Mammalogy in 2009, males of Zaglossus bartoni are smaller than females. Eastern long-beaked echidnas are typically found in dense vegetation and underground burrows.

The western long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii) is found in the Bird’s Head peninsula and Foja Mountains of West Papua and Papua provinces. They are endemic to the Vogelkop region of New Guinea including the Arfak, Tamrau, Fak Fak, possibly the Charles Louis Mountains, as well as island of Salawati. They prefer alpine meadows and humid montane forests. 

Sir David’s Long-beaked echidna, named after the famous naturalist and wild animal advocate David Attenborough, is found in only one area, and as I mentioned in the first episode all we have to go on with this species is a specimen captured in the 1960’s. We know where they live because we see the evidence of their existence. Holes in the ground called nose pokes are indicative of echidna activity. In 2007, an expedition to the Cyclops Mountains of Indonesia in the region of Papua recorded nose pokes and received information from locals about the existence of this echidna. They did not see a live echidna  but they were hopeful that reports were correct and the animal still lived. Because we’d thought it was extinct. 

Here’s the really exciting information about Sir David’s long-beaked echidna. An expedition in 2023 to the Cyclops mountain caught video evidence of a live Zaglossus attenboroughi on a remote camera trap. It was the last day of the expedition and they had seen nose pokes in previously reported areas, but once again they thought they’d get no visual conformation until….there ii was waddling along triggering the camera to record video of its existence! We thought they were extinct for 60 years and researchers had rediscovered them! 

It’s very exciting. This species is found only in the Cyclops Mountains in tropical montane moss forest of the extreme northern Papua Province. There is the possibility that they may be in nearby regions but those areas have yet to be adequately surveyed. With definitive proof of Sir David’s long-beaked echidna in the Cyclops Mountains maybe we can branch out and survey nearby areas. 

As I was reading the scientific paper in the Journal of Mammalogy (yes, I just admitted to reading scientific papers) about the home ranges, movement, and den use of Zaglossus bartoni, I realized that I neglected to talk about a few interesting characteristics of echidnas in the first episode. I’m going to include them here.

First I completely forgot to mention that echidnas have spurs. All species have spurs on their back legs. Both males and females have these spurs on their back legs, but some females loose them as they age. Both extant monotremes, the platypus and the echidna, have spurs. In platypus only the males have spurs and the substance that the spur excrete is a venom. The echidna’s spurs excrete something completely different. Echina spurs act more like a scent gland. It is used during breeding season to excrete a waxy substance that may be used to locate potential mates.

The second interesting fact about echidnas is that at one time there were only two species of echidna. The short-beaked echidna and the long-beaked echidna. Upon further examination, scientists determined that there were three distinct species of long-beaked echidna. In 1998 researchers reported differences in skull morphology, body size, fur coloration, and the number of clawed toes on the front and back feet. The differences were significant enough that scientists decided that the long-beaked echidnas should be separated into three species.

On this note, there is some thinking that the eastern long-beaked echidna may be divided again into more species, but research is still on going.

 

That’s all for echidna habitats, I’m glad you listened to this episode because where echidnas live is my second favorite thing about them.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

 

Join me next week for another episode about echidnas.    

 

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.