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