How does a puggle drink its mother’s milk?

It licks it from milk patches, because echidnas have no nipples

It drinks from a nipple, like a kitten

Its mother brings milk up from her stomach

short-beaked echidna

Tachyglossus aculeatus

The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is a spiny, ant-eating mammal from Australia and New Guinea. It is a monotreme: one of the only mammals that lay eggs, together with the platypus and three long-beaked echidnas. A female lays one soft egg straight into a pouch on her belly, and the tiny baby, called a puggle, licks milk from patches of skin because echidnas have no nipples. Cream spines with dark tips cover its back, and it has no teeth. Instead it digs into ant and termite nests and flicks out a long, sticky tongue. The tip of its beak can even sense weak electric fields. It is Australia’s most widespread native mammal.

Also known as Short-nosed echidna, Spiny anteater

Short-beaked echidna abilities

1 egg laid straight into the pouch
Echidnas are mammals, with fur and milk, but they lay eggs. A female lays one soft, leathery egg straight into the pouch on her belly and carries it with her while it develops.
- Echidnas and platypuses are the only egg-laying mammals alive today. Scientists call them monotremes.
- The egg is laid about three weeks after mating. It is 13–17 mm across, roughly the size of a grape.
- It hatches after only 10–11 days in the pouch.
- Most other mammals, including hedgehogs and people, give birth to live babies instead.
Sources [3, 5, 13, 24]
≈0.3 g puggle at hatching
A newly hatched echidna, called a puggle, is smaller than a jellybean. Its mother has no nipples, so milk seeps out of patches of skin inside the pouch and the puggle laps it up.
- A puggle is about 13–15 mm long when it hatches and weighs about 0.3 g.
- Each milk patch has about 100–150 tiny pores. The puggle clings to hairs inside the pouch while it feeds.
- After about 45–55 days its spines start to grow and it is too prickly for the pouch. Its mother leaves it in a nursery burrow.
- She comes back only every 5–10 days to feed it, then leaves again. Young echidnas are weaned at about 4½–7 months.
Sources [1, 2, 3, 5]
≈400 electric sensors in the beak tip
The tip of an echidna’s beak can sense weak electric fields, like those given off by moving animals. Among mammals this sense is very rare. Its egg-laying cousin, the platypus, has it too.
- In 1989, scientists recorded nerve signals from sensors in the snout tip. It was the first electric sense found in an animal that lives on land.
- A trained echidna learned to pick the one water trough of two with a weak electric field across it. It noticed fields as weak as 1.8 millivolts per centimetre.
- Its sensors are few. Estimates range from about 100 to about 400, against about 40,000 in a platypus bill.
- The sensors were tested with the snout in water, and they may help in damp soil. Nobody has yet shown how much echidnas use them to find food.
Electric sensors (approximate)
Short-beaked echidna≈400
Long-beaked echidna≈2,000
Platypus≈40,000
Counts as reported by Australian Geographic and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. A 1998 review counted only about 100 in the echidna’s snout tip.
Sources [4, 9, 10, 11]
≤20 cm deep feeding holesStill debated
An echidna shuffles along with its beak down, poking it into leaf litter, soft soil and rotten wood. When it finds an ant or termite nest, it digs in. Exactly which senses lead it there is still being worked out.
- Its beak tip is packed with touch sensors, and scientists believe smell helps it find food too.
- The electric sensors may help in damp soil, but this has not been proven during normal feeding.
- Feeding leaves cone-shaped holes up to about 20 cm deep, or tunnels into termite mounds and ant nests.
- Echidna scats are long and cylindrical and full of soil and bits of ants and termites, a clue to what it has been eating.
Sources [3, 10, 25]
up to 18 cm tongue reach
Out of its tiny mouth an echidna flicks a long, thin, sticky tongue into the tunnels of an ant or termite nest. The insects stick to it and are pulled back in.
- The tongue can stretch up to about 18 cm and shoot in and out more than 100 times a minute.
- Its scientific name, Tachyglossus, means ‘fast tongue’.
- With no teeth, it mashes its food between hard spines on the back of the tongue and the roof of its mouth.
- Ants and termites are its main food, but it also eats beetle larvae and worms.
Sources [3, 6, 13]
≈204 m³ soil one echidna could turn over in a year
Echidnas are strong diggers. They break into ant nests, termite mounds and rotten logs to feed, and dig burrows to shelter in. All that digging churns up a lot of soil.
- In one study, wild echidnas wore tiny GPS and motion loggers on their backs. They spent about 12% of their time digging.
- From that, the scientists worked out that one echidna could move up to about 204 cubic metres of soil a year.
- Turning soil over like this is called bioturbation. It helps keep the ecosystem healthy.
- Digging bouts are short, usually less than 10 minutes at a time.
Sources [7, 14, 25]
up to 5 cm spines
Instead of running away, an echidna usually hunches down and digs into the ground until only its spines show, or curls into a spiky ball. A predator is left facing a wall of points.
- On soft ground it digs straight down and covers itself with soil, leaving only its spiny back showing.
- On hard ground it may wedge itself into a crack between rocks or under a log with its spines jammed out.
- If it is rolled onto its back, it curls into a ball of spines to protect its soft, furry belly.
- It is not perfect: foxes, cats, dogs, dingoes and goannas still catch echidnas, mostly young ones.
Sources [1, 2, 3, 7]
4.5 °C lowest body temperature recorded
An echidna’s body runs cool, about 30–32 °C when active. In cold places it hibernates for months: its body cools to within about 1 °C of the soil around it, which saves a lot of energy.
- Echidnas in hibernation usually keep their bodies at about 8–10 °C. The lowest recorded is 4.5 °C.
- The heart can slow to about 4 beats a minute, compared with 50–68 at rest.
- In Tasmania, echidnas hibernate for 3.5–7 months a year. Males wake up first and look for females to mate with, even while the females are still hibernating.
- In a 2016 study of a controlled burn, echidnas stayed inactive for days afterwards and let their bodies cool, saving energy in the burnt landscape. All but one of the tracked echidnas survived the fire.
Echidna heartbeats per minute
Hibernating≈4
Resting50–68
Active135–145
Figures from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance fact sheet.
Sources [4, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18]

Tap a pin on the model or a part below.

up to 5 cm long spines
- Each spine is a thick, stiff hair made mostly of keratin, the same stuff as your fingernails.
- Spines grow only on the back and sides, never on the belly. Dark fur grows between them.
- Each spine has a long root anchored in a layer of muscle. Unlike porcupine quills, the spines do not come loose when the echidna defends itself.
Sources [3, 4, 13]
6–7.5 cm long
- The beak, or snout, is a long, bare, leathery tube. The nostrils and the mouth are both right at the tip.
- An echidna pushes it into soft soil, leaf litter and rotten wood and twists it in a corkscrew action to turn the ground over.
- It is not a bird’s beak: it is the echidna’s nose and jaws, covered in skin.
Sources [4, 25]
≈400 electric sensors
- The tip of the beak has tiny sensors that pick up weak electric fields. Each one sits at the opening of a special mucus gland in the skin.
- Counts differ between studies: from about 100 to about 400 sensors, all in the very tip. A platypus has about 40,000 in its bill.
- Tiny bumps called push rods in the same skin are touch sensors.
Sources [4, 9, 10, 11]
≈5 mm widest gape
- The mouth opens only about 5 mm, narrower than a pencil. Only small prey fits in.
- Echidnas have no teeth. Hard keratin spines at the back of the tongue grind food against the roof of the mouth.
Sources [4, 6, 13]
≈9 mm across
- Each eye is only about 9 mm across, about the size of a pea.
- They sit low on the head, just behind the base of the beak.
Sources [4]
- There are no ear flaps. Each ear is a small, upright slit hidden in the fur behind the eye.
- Some scientists think echidnas might hear insects moving underground, but that has not been tested.
Sources [3, 4]
- Short, strong front legs stick out to the sides and end in broad feet with flat, spade-like claws.
- In tracks, the front feet turn inwards.
- The front claws rip open ant nests and termite mounds and shovel soil away.
Sources [4, 25]
- The bones of the hind legs are rotated, so the back feet point backwards.
- The back claws are long and curved. A long grooming claw combs dirt out from between the spines.
- In sand, the long back claws often leave a drag mark between the footprints.
Sources [4, 13, 25]
- A female grows a small pouch on her belly only when she is about to breed. It opens backwards.
- She lays her single egg straight into it, and the baby hatches and grows there.
- When the baby’s spines start to grow, it has to leave the pouch.
Sources [3, 5, 26]

Real short-beaked echidnas

Photos from Wikimedia Commons. One of them can repaint the 3D model.

Cream spines, dark fur and a long, bare beak, in Mount Field National Park, TasmaniaPhoto: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 3.0
Face to face: small eyes and a tube-shaped beakPhoto: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 3.0
The beak tip, where the nostrils, the tiny mouth and the electric sensors are, dusted with soilPhoto: Bidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0 au
Searching an old stump for ants and termites, Mulligans Flat, CanberraPhoto: Wildlifecartoons, CC BY-SA 4.0
A Kangaroo Island echidna, with its many long, pale spines, digging for foodPhoto: Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble, CC BY 2.0
Tucked into a spiky ball in dry grass, VictoriaPhoto: fir0002 (flagstaffotos), GFDL 1.2
A puggle in a researcher’s hand, beside the spines of an adultPhoto: Ian R McCann, CC BY-SA 4.0
Tasmanian echidnaSoft, thick, often light-brown fur, with spines that are shorter and fewer and rarely poke out far. Echidnas in colder places tend to be furrier.A little smaller than mainland echidnasA Tasmanian echidna: thick fur half-hides its spines, near Scottsdale. Photo: Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0
Crossing a road: cars kill many echidnasPhoto: Petite Trotamundos, CC BY-SA 4.0
An echidna scat in a garden in Cairns. Citizen scientists collect scats like this for DNA testsPhoto: Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0

Short-beaked echidna by the numbers

Measured by scientists in the wild and in zoos.

Weight: 2–7 kg; adults; body weight can change by up to 35% over a year; About as heavy as a pet cat⁠[1, 4]
Length: 30–45 cm; head and body; the beak adds another 6–7.5 cm⁠[1, 4]
Spines: up to 5 cm; stiff hairs of keratin on the back and sides⁠[3, 4]
Tongue: up to 18 cm; flicked in and out more than 100 times a minute⁠[6]
Electric sensors: ≈400; in the beak tip; a platypus bill has about 40,000⁠[4, 11]; Echidna400 Platypus40,000
Egg: 13–17 mm; one soft egg, hatching after 10–11 days in the pouch; About the size of a grape⁠[5]
Puggle at hatching: ≈0.3 g; 13–15 mm long, smaller than a jellybean⁠[5]
Body temperature: 29.5–32.5 °C; when active; as low as 4.5 °C in hibernation⁠[4, 7]; Hibernating4.5 °CActive32 °C
Soil moved: up to ≈204 m³; a year, worked out from wild echidnas wearing motion loggers⁠[14]
Lifespan: Decades; a wild average of about 17 years in good years; one zoo echidna lived 56 years at San Diego Zoo⁠[5, 8]

Short-beaked echidna myths and facts

Tap Myth or Fact for each claim, then check the answer.

0 of 8 answered

“Echidnas are a kind of hedgehog.”
“Echidnas are mammals that lay eggs.”
“Echidna mothers feed their babies from nipples.”
“Echidnas have no teeth.”
“Echidnas find all their food with their electric sense.”
“A female echidna has a pouch all year round, like a kangaroo.”
“Echidnas can swim.”
“Echidnas shoot their spines at enemies.”

A short-beaked echidna’s life

From a love train to a grown-up digger. Timings change from place to place.

Winter
The love train
Several males follow a female nose to tail in a line. Most trains have 3–5 echidnas; the biggest seen had 11.⁠[12, 5]
≈3 weeks later
One egg
The female lays a single soft egg, the size of a grape, straight into her new pouch.⁠[5]
10–11 days
Hatching
A tiny puggle about 13–15 mm long hatches and laps milk from the milk patches.⁠[5, 3]
≈45–55 days
Into the nursery burrow
Its spines start to grow, so it leaves the pouch. Its mother leaves it in a burrow, safe and alone.⁠[5, 1, 26]
Every 5–10 days
Milk visits
The mother comes back to feed it for a few hours, then goes off to forage again.⁠[5]
≈4½–7 months
Weaned
The young echidna stops drinking milk and starts to find ants and termites on its own.⁠[5]
≈5 years
Grown up
On Kangaroo Island echidnas are ready to breed at about five years old. A female may raise only one young every few years.⁠[5]
Decades
A long life
Echidnas live about four times longer than expected for an animal their size. A zoo echidna lived 56 years.⁠[5, 8]

Short-beaked echidna vs long-beaked echidna vs platypus vs hedgehog

Three egg-laying mammals and the spiny animal people most often mix echidnas up with.

Short-beaked echidna vs western long-beaked echidna vs platypus vs European hedgehog
	Short-beaked echidna	Western long-beaked echidna	Platypus	European hedgehog
Scientific name⁠[1, 21, 22, 24]	Tachyglossus aculeatus	Zaglossus bruijnii	Ornithorhynchus anatinus	Erinaceus europaeus
Native to⁠[1, 21, 22, 24]	Australia and New Guinea	Western New Guinea	Eastern Australia and Tasmania	Europe to central Asia
Weight⁠[1, 21, 22, 24]	2–7 kg	5–16 kg	0.8–2.5 kg	0.8–1.2 kg
Babies⁠[5, 21, 23, 24]	1 egg, in a pouch	1 egg, in a pouch	Usually 2 eggs, in a nesting burrow, no pouch	Live babies, usually 4–6
Electric sensors⁠[11, 23, 10]	≈400	≈2,000	≈40,000	None known
Main food⁠[2, 21, 22, 24]	Ants and termites	Earthworms and grubs	Water insects, shrimps and other small water animals	Beetles and other insects
Teeth⁠[13, 21, 23, 24]	None	None	None as adults	36

Hedgehogs and echidnas both have spines, but they are not close relatives: the hedgehog is a placental mammal that gives birth to live young.

Short-beaked echidnas as soil gardeners

Every hole an echidna digs turns the soil over. Across a whole year, that adds up.

12%
of its time spent digging
Wild echidnas carrying GPS and motion loggers spent about an eighth of their time digging, more in spring than in summer.⁠[14]
≈204 m³
of soil a year
That much digging could move up to about 204 cubic metres of soil a year for one echidna. The scientists say this turning-over helps keep the ecosystem healthy.⁠[14]
≤20 cm
deep feeding holes
Echidnas leave cone-shaped holes in ant nests and termite mounds, and small scratched patches where the snout has stirred up soil and leaf litter.⁠[25]

The 204 m³ figure is a calculation from one study of wild echidnas, not a measurement of every echidna.

Short-beaked echidna names

What its names mean, from scientists, First Nations languages and the playground.

Puggle
A baby echidna. It starts life in its mother’s pouch, then moves to a nursery burrow when its spines grow.⁠[13, 26]
Monotreme
The group of egg-laying mammals: the platypus and the echidnas.⁠[10, 13]
Tachyglossus aculeatus
Its scientific name means ‘spiny fast-tongue’. The first scientist to describe it, in 1792, thought it was a kind of anteater.⁠[3, 13]
Tjilkamata
One of many First Nations names for the echidna; this one is from the Pitjantjatjara language of central Australia.⁠[25, 3]
Love train
A line of males following one female through the bush in the winter breeding season.⁠[12]
On the five-cent coin
An echidna, designed by Stuart Devlin, has been on Australia’s five-cent coin since decimal money began on 14 February 1966.⁠[20]

Are short-beaked echidnas endangered?

Not as a species. But some populations are in trouble, and echidnas are hard to count because they are shy and hard to spot.

IUCN Red List

Least Concern (LC)

Least Concern: it is the most widespread native mammal in Australia and lives in almost every habitat, from deserts to snowy mountains. The Kangaroo Island echidna, a separate subspecies, is endangered.⁠[3, 19, 1]

IUCN Red List, 2016 assessment.

Threats

Roads
Slow-moving echidnas often cross roads. After introduced predators, cars are one of the biggest causes of echidna deaths.⁠[1, 2, 26]
Introduced predators
Foxes, dogs and feral cats kill echidnas, especially young ones. On Kangaroo Island, feral cats are the biggest threat.⁠[2, 26]
Habitat loss and change
Clearing, too much grazing by feral animals and changes to fire patterns have made echidnas rarer in some places.⁠[25, 26]

What’s helping

Echidna detectives8,000+
In its first three years, the EchidnaCSI app collected more than 8,000 echidna sightings and 400 scats from the public. Scientists test the scats’ DNA.⁠[19]
Tough survivors
By lying low and cooling down, echidnas can ride out bushfires that kill many other animals.⁠[15]
Controlling feral animals
Feral cats, and to a lesser extent feral pigs, are major threats to Kangaroo Island echidnas, so controlling them is part of protecting echidnas there.⁠[26, 2]

Egg-laying relatives

Western long-beaked echidnaCritically Endangered
Lives in the rainforests of western New Guinea and eats mostly earthworms. Listed as Critically Endangered.⁠[21]
PlatypusNear Threatened
The only other living monotreme group. Listed as Near Threatened since 2016.⁠[23]

Short-beaked echidna quiz

12 questions. Every answer is somewhere on this page.

Question 1 of 12Score 0

What kind of animal is an echidna?

short-beaked echidna field notes

Diet, food web, safety and badges from the Snappit field guide.

Diet & Feeding

This spiky mammal loves munching on ants, termites, and other small insects it finds underground!

Primary Foods

ants
termites
earthworms
beetle larvae
grubs
Foraging Method: Foraging

Ecological connections

DingoEaten by
Young echidnas are vulnerable to dingoes.
Wedge-tailed EagleEaten by
Eagles can prey on echidnas from above.
Tasmanian DevilEaten by
Devils are known to scavenge or hunt echidnas.

Safety

Danger 2/5 · Low

If you see an echidna, watch it from a distance and don’t try to touch it, as it can be prickly.

Traits

Collections

Mammals

Classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Monotremata
Family: Tachyglossidae
Genus: Tachyglossus

Sources for these short-beaked echidna facts

26 studies and references · checked Oct 29, 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

How to identify short-beaked echidna?

Compare ears, muzzle, tail, feet and coat markings. Size is hard to judge without something nearby for scale, and young mammals may not have adult coloring yet. Mammal Identifier: upload a photo and compare the visible details.

How long is short-beaked echidna?

30-45 cm

How much does short-beaked echidna weigh?

2-5 kg

How long does short-beaked echidna live?

10-15 years

How fast can short-beaked echidna move?

3 km/h

What does short-beaked echidna eat?

This spiky mammal loves munching on ants, termites, and other small insects it finds underground!

Where is short-beaked echidna usually found?

Grasslands

How does short-beaked echidna hunt?

Foraging

Do echidnas really lay eggs?

Yes. Echidnas and the platypus are the only mammals alive today that lay eggs. A female short-beaked echidna lays one soft, leathery egg, about 13–17 mm across, straight into a pouch on her belly. It hatches after about 10–11 days.

What is a baby echidna called?

A puggle. It hatches about 13–15 mm long and weighing about 0.3 g. It laps milk from milk patches in the pouch, because echidnas have no nipples, and leaves the pouch for a burrow when its spines grow.

Do echidnas have electric senses?

Yes. The tip of the beak has a few hundred electric sensors, far fewer than the platypus’s 40,000. A trained echidna could detect fields as weak as 1.8 millivolts per centimetre in water. How much echidnas use this sense to find food in the wild is still unknown.

What do echidnas eat?

Mostly ants and termites, plus beetle larvae and worms. They break into nests with their claws and catch the insects on a sticky tongue up to about 18 cm long. They have no teeth and grind food between spines on the tongue and the roof of the mouth.

Are echidnas related to hedgehogs or porcupines?

No. Echidnas are monotremes, related to the platypus. Hedgehogs and porcupines are placental mammals that give birth to live young. And unlike porcupine quills, echidna spines do not come loose.

How long do echidnas live?

A long time for their size, about four times longer than expected. Wild echidnas averaged about 17 years in good years in one study, and an echidna at San Diego Zoo lived there for 56 years.

Are short-beaked echidnas endangered?

No. They are listed as Least Concern and are Australia’s most widespread native mammal. But the Kangaroo Island population is endangered, and cars, foxes, cats, dogs and habitat loss kill echidnas in many places.

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Short-beaked echidna abilities

Egg-Laying Mammal

Milk Without Nipples

Electric Beak

Nose to the Ground

Fast, Sticky Tongue

Power Digger

Spiny Shield

Cool Customer

short-beaked echidna spiny coat

short-beaked echidna tube-shaped beak

short-beaked echidna electric beak tip

short-beaked echidna tiny, toothless mouth

short-beaked echidna small eyes

short-beaked echidna hidden ears

short-beaked echidna digging front feet

short-beaked echidna backwards back feet

short-beaked echidna temporary pouch

“Echidnas are a kind of hedgehog.”

“Echidnas are mammals that lay eggs.”

“Echidna mothers feed their babies from nipples.”

“Echidnas have no teeth.”

“Echidnas find all their food with their electric sense.”

“A female echidna has a pouch all year round, like a kangaroo.”

“Echidnas can swim.”

“Echidnas shoot their spines at enemies.”

The love train

One egg

Hatching

Into the nursery burrow

Milk visits

Weaned

Grown up

A long life

Puggle

Monotreme

Tachyglossus aculeatus

Tjilkamata

Love train

On the five-cent coin

Threats

What’s helping

Egg-laying relatives

What kind of animal is an echidna?

How many eggs does a female echidna lay at a time?

Where does she put her egg?

What is a baby echidna called?

How does a puggle drink its mother’s milk?

Where are the echidna’s electric sensors?

About how many electric sensors are in a platypus bill?

How far can an echidna’s tongue reach?

What does the name Tachyglossus mean?

How much soil could one echidna turn over in a year, according to a study with motion loggers?

What is the lowest body temperature recorded in a hibernating echidna?

Which Australian coin has an echidna on it?