#montreme

[coffeenuts]

Short-beaked Echidna by kkr_images https://flic.kr/p/2of9tQr

[chameleocoonj]

Second nine inktobers! More critters and creatures 🐛🐛🐛

It’s been almost a month and I still don’t know why captions aren’t saving, so I’ll add some details below the cut if you’re interested in what the prompts were and stuff. :>

day 10 - pattern - coral and king snakes

day 11 - snow - marine snow whalefall

day 12 - dragon - prehistoric dragons, Quetzalcoatlus and Yi qi

day 13 - ash - legendary salamander

day 14 - overgrown - big snappy I saw at the nature center

day 15 - legend - most cryptids are owls

day 16 - wild - african wild dog

day 17 - ornament - funky birds with ornamental plumage

day 18 - misfit - monotreme friends

[animalworld]

SHORT BEAKED ECHIDNA Tachyglossus aculeatus ©Laura Quick

Status: Least Concern

Habitat: Papua New Guinea, Tasmania, and Australia

Diet: Insectivorous, feeding primarily on termites and ants

Length: 12–24 inches (about size of a half basketball)

Weight: 12 pounds

Echidnas and platypuses are the only surviving monotremes, an ancient branch of egg-laying mammals that is believed to have changed little in millions of years. The female lays a single egg that she tucks into a primitive pouch—a fold of skin that holds the egg in place. After hatching, the baby stays in place for a few weeks, until it develops spines, then it moves to a burrow.

The male grows a spur (seen on back leg) that may have been venomous at one point but is current secretion is believed to be used in both fighting for, and attracting, a mate.

Weird Sex Stuff:

Unlike marsupials, monotremes don’t have nipples. The female secretes milk from ducts that are similar to sweat glands onto a “milk patch” of skin, and the baby (called a puggle) laps the nourishment off her skin.

Male echidnas have a four-headed penis. They alternate using two at a time for mating. No one has ever recorded an echidna ejaculating.

Other posts you might like:

Long Eared Hedgehog

Lesser Hedgehog Tenrec

Malayan Pangolin

[aboundingabundance]

Monotremes, platypuses and the two species of echidna don’t have stomachs.

[thebrainscoop]

Hello! I'm really loving your videos and your blog and you. I'm studying zoology at university so sometimes watching your videos and reading your posts almost feels like fun studying which is very lovely, so thank you!

A few years ago, I went to Paris, and we visited this Natural History Museum. And one of the exhibits of duck-billed platypuses (platypi?) might be the best thing I have seen in my entire life. So I thought I would share. 

They're tickling each other. Rolling around. I'm going to ignore all common sense and believe this is natural behaviour.

I get a lot of submissions/questions and asks in my inbox (about 30 a day) so I filter through them accordingly, and this one grabbed my attention a few days ago.  And I didn't go through all of the text, just saw the picture, and mentally logged it as 'I need to repost this one'.  And just now realized that THIS IS A MUSEUM DISPLAY.  I thought you just got lucky and captured a beautiful moment in the everyday life of our favorite monotreme, the platypus, but NO, it's actually a live-mounted scene?!  There is no question that I have to see this for myself someday before I die.  It's absolutely beautiful.  

This exhibit is way more inspirational than the Mona Lisa.