Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Monotremata > Tachyglossidae > Tachyglossus > Tachyglossus aculeatus

Tachyglossus aculeatus (Short-beaked Echidna)

Synonyms: Echidna aculeata; Echidna australis; Myrmecophaga aculeata (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is one of four living species of echidna and the only member of the genus Tachyglossus. It is covered in fur and spines and has a distinctive snout and a specialized tongue, which it uses to catch its insect prey at a great speed. Like the other extant monotremes, the short-beaked echidna lays eggs; the monotremes are the only group of mammals to do so.
View Wikipedia Record: Tachyglossus aculeatus

Infraspecies

Tachyglossus aculeatus acanthion (Short-beaked echidna)
Tachyglossus aculeatus aculeatus (Short-beaked echidna)
Tachyglossus aculeatus lawesii (New Guinea short-beaked echidna)
Tachyglossus aculeatus multiaculeatus (Kangaroo Island echidna)
Tachyglossus aculeatus setosus (Tasmanian short-beaked echidna)

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
29
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
51
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 55.95
EDGE Score: 4.04
View EDGE Record: Tachyglossus aculeatus

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  3.417 lbs (1.55 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  0.379 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year 6 months
Male Maturity [1]  1 year 6 months
Gestation [1]  22 days
Hibernates [3]  Yes
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [4]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  50 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  15 inches (38 cm)
Weaning [1]  6 months 20 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Southwest Australia Australia No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Dasyurus viverrinus (Eastern Quoll)1
Isoodon obesulus (Southern Brown Bandicoot)1
Rhipidura leucophrys (Willie Wagtail)1

Predators

Accipiter novaehollandiae (Grey Goshawk)[6]
Canis lupus dingo (domestic dog)[7]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
5OBSERVATIONS ON THE DIET AND FEEDING HABITS OF THE SHORT-BEAKED ECHIDNA (TACHYGLOSSUS ACULEATUS) IN TASMANIA, Chris P. Spencer & Karen Richards, The Tasmanian Naturalist 131 (2009), p. 36-41
6del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
7Who's Eating Who
8Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
9International Flea Database
10Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0