Old does not mean primitive. Let’s get that straight at once, because I’m a mite sensitive on the subject. Sure, we’re mammals and sure, we lay eggs, which makes us unusual in the late Holocene but that doesn’t mean we’re backward. Au contraire: we’re the oldest surviving mammalian lineage at more than 180 million years: we might just be getting something right.
Monday
As an echidna – hard C please – I’m naturally interested in etymology. We’re named for the Greek goddess Echidna, half woman, half snake, famous as the mother of monsters, including the sphinx and the Nemean lion. I don’t hold with the theory that our name comes from ekhinos, meaning hedgehog or sea urchin.
Tuesday
But we’re singular rather than monstrous. We work the ground for ants and termites – like an anteater, but we got there first. We’re covered in spines and in times of trouble we’ll curl up like hedgehogs, but again, we got there first. Let’s have a little respect.
Wednesday
A good feeding day: a termite nest and real banquet. I found them with the 400 electroreceptors on my beak: still think I’m primitive? After that it was back to the burrow to feed the puggle with milk, being a mammal: but I do so without the teats that therians go in for. That is to say, placental mammals and marsupials. All mammals apart from us four species of echidna and those platypuses.
Thursday
How do hedgehogs mate? Very, very carefully, says the old joke. Not half as carefully as us echidnas. The male from last time around, six months back, obviously had to operate with some caution to avoid impaling himself on my spines but – well, my heart bleeds for him. Our males come equipped with a four-headed penis covered in spikes. Really. Penile spines, they’re called. They’re supposed to stimulate us into ovulation, but – well, that’s quite enough on the subject.
Friday
Anyway, it worked and 22 days later I laid my egg. The puggle eventually emerged as a sort of slug: but a beloved slug; I have raised him into true echidna-hood and he’ll soon be weaned. And then, I suppose, if we’re all saved, it’ll be time to start again. We move at a thoughtful, gentle pace through our lives: slow metabolism, body temperature as low as you can get and still be a mammal, 29-32˚C. That tends to make us philosophical.
Saturday
Bloody dogs. There I was on my evening patrol, and some stupid dog thinks I might be the latest in dog-toys. I curled up, spines out, and dug myself in, because we’re serious diggers. After a bit the dog got bored and went off to spoil somebody else’s night. But it left me thinking. It’s not so much bloody dogs as bloody humans, and not just because they brought the bloody dogs to Australia. Our line is 180 million years old: and yet our future is in the paws of a Johnny-come-lately species of ecosystem-altering bipedal therians.
Short-beaked echidna’s (Tachyglossus aculeatus) CV
Lifespan Twenty years, twice that if you’re lucky
Eating habits ants, termites
Hobbies Digging
Sexual preferences Kicking against the pricks
Photograph by Robert Harding/Alamy