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Echidnas are possibly named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology who was half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. [citation needed] An alternative explanation is a confusion with Ancient Greek: ἐχῖνος, romanized: ekhînos, lit. 'hedgehog, sea urchin'. [5]
Little is known about the life of these rarely seen animals, but it is believed to have habits similar to those of the short-beaked echidna; unlike them, however, the long-beaked echidnas feed primarily on earthworms rather than ants, as they live in much more humid environments than the smaller Tachyglossus echidna.
Like the closely related platypus, echidnas have spurs on their hind legs. Unlike the platypus, echidna spurs are not venomous. [5] All eastern long-beaked echidnas start with spurs on their hind feet and spur sheaths that cover them. Females typically lose their spurs later in life while males keep them. Females are also generally larger than ...
The fictional character Knuckles the Echidna from Sonic the Hedgehog is a red short beaked echidna who possesses superhuman strength. The short-beaked echidna is an iconic animal in contemporary Australia, notably appearing on the five-cent coin (the smallest denomination), [ 122 ] and on a $200 commemorative coin released in 1992. [ 123 ]
Zaglossus attenboroughi, also known as Attenborough's long-beaked echidna or locally as Payangko, is one of three species from the genus Zaglossus that inhabits the island of New Guinea. [3] It lives in the Cyclops Mountains , which are near the cities of Sentani and Jayapura in the Indonesian province of Papua .
The Ornithorhynchidae / ɔːr ˌ n ɪ θ ə ˈ r ɪ ŋ k ɪ d iː / are one of the two extant families in the order Monotremata, and contain the platypus and its extinct relatives. The other family is the Tachyglossidae, or echidnas.
Erinaceidae / ˌ ɛr ɪ n ə ˈ s iː ɪ d iː / is a family in the order Eulipotyphla, consisting of the hedgehogs and moonrats.Until recently, it was assigned to the order Erinaceomorpha, which has been subsumed with the paraphyletic Soricomorpha into Eulipotyphla.
Ornithorhynchoidea is a superfamily of mammals containing the only living monotremes, the platypus and the echidnas, as well as their closest fossil relatives, to the exclusion of more primitive fossil monotremes of uncertain affinity.