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The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), also called the short-nosed echidna, 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 specialised tongue , which it uses to catch its insect prey at a great speed.
The species are Western long-beaked echidna (Z. bruijni), of the highland forests; Sir David's long-beaked echidna (Z. attenboroughi), discovered by Western science in 1961 (described in 1998) and preferring a still higher habitat; [37] Eastern long-beaked echidna (Z. bartoni), of which four distinct subspecies have been identified.
The animal is currently classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The footage of the echidna was captured in the last images on the team’s final memory card.
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.
Another strange monotreme is the short-beaked echidna; covered in hairy spikes, with a tubular snout in the place of a mouth, it has a tongue that can move in and out of the snout about 100 times per minute to capture termites. The tiger quoll is mainland Australia's largest carnivorous marsupial and an endangered species.
Attenborough's long-beaked echidna, named for the famed biologist David Attenborough, is one of only five living species of monotremes, a group of egg-laying mammals that includes the platypus.
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.
A different echidna species is found throughout Australia and lowland New Guinea. Kempton's team survived an earthquake, malaria and even a leech attached to an eyeball during their trip.