· Echidnas are also known as spiny ant eaters and are found throughout Australia and New Guinea	Click here for Echidna photos!
	· Their strong bodies are covered with a browny/blacky coat which is covered with light colour, coarse, hairy spines

· They also have short legs, but long, heavy claws which are used to dig up ants, termites and worms (they are carnivores) · Echidna tongues are 15-18 centimeteres long. They can shoot out of the tiny mouth with lightening speed and be bent in U-shapes to follow ant tunnels. The Echidna has no teeth, food is ground up with special hard pads on the pack of the tongue and top of the mouth

· Echidnas live in some areas where there is no water available at least part of the year, and it is a mystery how they get their water! It has been calculated that it might be possible for echidnas to get the minimum water they need from their food. Echidnas have also been observed to use a common trick of desert animals, namely licking the early morning dew from plants

· They have small ears and have long snouts, which are used for poking into holes and turning over rocks to search for termites and ants. They use their long and sticky tongues to gather up their prey

· Echidnas can get to be 50 cm. and can weigh 6.5 kg
· Like the platypus, an echidna is a monotreme (i.e. an egg laying mammal). The female lays a single egg, which is deposited into a pouch on the mothers belly
· The egg hatchs within ten days and for the next six weeks, the newborn is fed on the mother's milk. Shortly after, the young echidna leaves the pouch, but the mother watches over it, until it can look after itself and develops a spine

· The average life span for an echidna is over 50 years. Humans are the only longer living mammal

· Echidnas are famous for their method of escaping danger. While echidnas do not build borrows to live in (except for the raising of young), they are excellent diggers. If caught in an exposed position, an echdinas will dig very rapidly straight down. In seconds, all that is showing is a small tuft of spines along the back