More than you maybe needed to know about the echidna

Echidnas are one of those weird Australian animals that seems to have been pieced together from leftover bits of other animals. Mammals that lay eggs, echidnas are covered in pointy hedgehog-like spines, but with a long snout and sticky tongue of an anteater.

Also, the males have a four-headed penis.

Not kidding. One shaft, four heads. Which is odd, because the female echidna reproductive tract only has two branches. Some of the stuff I've read this morning says that the male echidna mates using only two of his four heads at a time. Then, he'll find another lady echidna and let the other two heads have a turn. Another option, presented by National Geographic: He mates twice with each lady echidna, using first two heads, and then the other two.

National Geographic has helpfully provided visual evidence of this four-headed penis.

I'm putting the photo under a cut. Partly for comic effect, and partly because what is seen can never be unseen.

Read the rest of the National Geographic article on the lives and weird biology of the echidna. (That's the only penis shot. Promise.)

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: australia • echidna • horrors • penises • Science • Sex

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the_unloginable

Like the platypus, the echidna both lays eggs and gives milk, making it one of the rare animals that can make it’s own custard.
- James Churchill
  
  Good thing I wasn’t eating custard just then, it’d have ended up all over my monitor.
greenberger

The echidna in the photo has a huge shit-eating grin plastered on him. As would we all if we could do what he does on a daily basis.
- nachoproblem
  
  And if we possessed the same ratio of dong to body mass.
Stephen Gordon

Another factor for my “guess who posted the article on boing boing” game

About Disney, Cory.
About weird animal penises, Maggie.
- retepslluerb
  
  I play this game whenever an article is in the RSS, but not in the site. Almost always Cory’s, for some reason.
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Someday, we’ll get together and find a weird animal penis at Disney World just to confuse you.
  - http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
    
    And then we’ll have Pesco post the story.
    - August Stuart
      
      Die Antwood song featuring banjo and ukelele released with crippling DRM!
  - Stephen Gordon
    
    Not another tiki room article…
  - http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck
    
    Work in a ukulele and you may crash the server.
  - Chuck
    
    Ooh! How about anatomically-correct Disney character costumes?
  - Palomino
    
    Or in Disneyland’s secret bathroom Cory is so fond of.
    http://boingboing.net/2012/05/04/tribute-to-disneylands-sec.html
  - nachoproblem
    
    Your best bet, scrutinize the light fixtures, wall graphics, bits of the castle, etc. for “details” that some wag slipped in there.
  - ocker3
    
    I don’t know about weird animal penis, but have you stood to the right of the Mickey and Walt statue at night and looked at it??
- digi_owl
  
  given that i have set up specific feeds for Cory and Maggie, i do not have much of a guessing game to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I’ve always put echidnas in the same category as jellyfish, giant squids, aardvarks, pangolins, and wolf spiders in that I want to know everything there is to know about them. There is no limit to my desire for more information about them.

The picture almost made me rethink that view.
http://profile.yahoo.com/FRJD66AT6LQ6CZZ46XJO43A4FM Artor

That is a pretty bizarre-looking monotreme schlong. Do platypus dicks look similar I wonder? I had no idea the echidna was that large. I guess the similarity to hedgehogs had confused me.
- Palomino
  
  With the platypus, there’s more than one way to get pricked. Ouch!
  - ldobe
    
    I see what you did there….
http://twitter.com/dalriada842 dalriada842

Who knew echidnas were so kinky! 8)
CH

Me 1 minute ago: “Awww… what a cute… WHAT THE…??? Oh!”
DreamboatSkanky

The four-play must be exquisite.
http://www.paradea.org/notes/ Teirhan

It looks kind of like some sort of root or tuber.
- snailspace
  
  EET EES NOT A TUBER.
Stephanie Schulman

He’s got nothing on Spider Dijon of The Mighty Boosh.
daneyul

Knuckles really let himself go!
bcsizemo

Staring at that picture gives me a feeling on inadequacy…
- malindrome
  
  It’s not the prongs on the schlongs, it’s the motion of the ocean.
http://profiles.google.com/blaisepascal Buddha Buck

Most of the time when I hear the tale of the 4-headed echidna penis, the attached photo is a close-up of the head, er, heads. This is the first time I’ve seen a picture of an echidna penis with the attached echidna in frame.
- Blaine Henderson
  
  What kind of life do you live that you hear the tale of the 4-headed echidna penis with any sort of frequency?
  - http://profiles.google.com/blaisepascal Buddha Buck
    
    For one thing, I read Maggie Koerth-Baker, so that ups my chances of hearing weird facts about animal penises already.
    
    In general I like reading “weird fact” sites, and collect lots of weird information in the process. Often the same facts will cycle around as one site discovers, e.g., baculums (penis bones), then a couple years later another site posts “holy shit, most mammals have bones in their penises!”.
    
    As Maggie has discovered, weird facts about animal penises are popular, so the same collection of facts will cycle through periodically (penis bones, snakes (and other reptiles, and sharks) having two penises (one served by each testicle), dolphins and whales having prehensile penises, etc).
    
    As an example of a 2010 sighting of the “echidna with 4-headed penis” story, take a look at http://nicholasnghwaeedays.blogspot.com/2010/11/four-penises.html, which includes the picture I most often see.
Thad Boyd

Thanks a lot.

Now some furry’s going to see this and Sonic the Hedgehog porn is going to get even MORE horrifying.
- Bersl
  
  I already started spreading the word an hour and a half ago. I also brought it to the attention of Bad Dragon.
  
  I figure that if one uses a Thor as a sword, having something like this might be a cool parrying dagger.
  - snusles
    
    I hope there are people reading these comments who haven’t heard of Bad Dragon until today. They’re one of today’s lucky 10,000
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/FRJD66AT6LQ6CZZ46XJO43A4FM Artor
    
    Using a Thor as a sword? What is that supposed to mean? I can’t envision fighting someone by trying to cut him in half with a Norse god of thunder. I must have missed something here…
    - Bersl
      
      The Thor is a gigantic dildo in the shape of a horse penis.
      
      You’re welcome. :D
http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

They say that you shouldn’t let little head do the thinking for big head, but it’s hard to overrule a committee.
- voiceinthedistance
  
  Why won’t the like button let me hit it ten times in a row for this comment?
dish

Is that a smile on it’s face.
- malindrome
  
  The echidna is just happy to see you … and you, and you, and you.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZNYEKGOFEZTRNSKT6LNQ764BZY annie

Just Look At It.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1007811994 Large Mammal

is it prehensile, too?
sota767

I’m just glad it’s a photo. Still traumatized after the duck penis video.
- blueelm
  
  There’s video for this one. Just so you know.
http://twitter.com/fivetonsflax fivetonsflax

I love you all.
blueelm

Scrolling down through this post is hilarious. Awww, look at that smiley face. He looks so
*scroll* er… happy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

If this species is ever Uplifted into sapience, the condom manufacturers are going to have a tricky design problem to deal with.
- invictus
  
  Rubber stretches much the same over four protrusions as it does over one.
- cdh1971
  
  This species is nowhere near pre-sapient, the Galactic Uplift Institute would never allow it, especially since there are so many species on Earth ripe for Uplift.
  
  This thing is, such a niche that it will likely never be a candidate for Uplift. Unless of course it is transplanted to another, preferably fallow planet and given the right conditions and at least, I dunno, five or so million years to achieve pre-sapience.
  
  Of course, if we wipe out the whales, dolphins and chimps, and/or fail to Uplift them before we become known to Galactic civilization in a couple hundred years, we may be judged pre-sapient and ripe for Uplift ourselves, and be assigned a Galactic Patron who will genetically and socially engineer us to their version of sapience. Then we will be indentured to them for 100,000 years until granted our freedom.
  
  Our achievement of space flight and use of FTL transit points might not be enough to save us from indenture in the absence of Uplifting other species, given our environmental crimes here on Earth.
  
  Of course, we will always be beholden to our Patrons, even after the period of indenture.
  
  (note: for source, Google “Brin Uplift Series”. Well worth checking out.)
- http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
  
  They’re actually weirdly intelligent. They live for decades (five or more, apparently) and they are known for problem solving, like piling dishes into a stairway to escape cages.
- nachoproblem
  
  On the other hand, makers of really small gloves will be ecstatic.
http://twitter.com/wildbell Will Campbell

“…partly because what is seen can never be unseen.”

You’re not echidna’ing
Danelda

He totally knows we’re staring at it.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Pitcavage/505491431 Mark Pitcavage

Now I can finally try cosplay.
- katkins
  
  and, perhaps tangentially, sineplay
http://profile.yahoo.com/L4GJGPWBWANDMH3EQZVGQDTWSE Dan Deezy

You’ve gotta be helluva mohel to deal with that.
francoisroux

Looks like something a Japanese tentacle freak would design…
xyzzy123

“I’m putting the photo under a cut. Partly for comic effect, and partly because what is seen can never be unseen.”

Sadly, this didn’t work for those of us who use RSS readers (at least, for Google Reader). We got the “full Monty” without any cut. Must go wash my eyes now… :-/
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1200768594 Carl Burke
  
  “Full Monty” in this case being the nearly complete cast of Monty Python.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/FRJD66AT6LQ6CZZ46XJO43A4FM Artor
    
    The Three-Headed Giant from Holy Grail just sprouted a new head in my mind…
Mr. Son

Echidna are bigger than I thought. I thought they might be the size of a guinea pig, or a rabbit. More nature shows should give us size comparisons with the animals they show.
paulio

‘heheh what a cute photo’ was my initial reaction. Then I scrolled down. What has been seen can’t be unseen!
- paulio
  
  ‘heheh what a cute photo’ was my initial reaction. Then I scrolled down. What has been seen can’t be unseen!
  
  Edit: then I read the rest of the article.. Damn you! You knew!! Haha
  ______
  This comment system is warped as, great for filtering out crap! Comments on this site are great. These two got through though, and for that I apologise -_-
Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet

You-lot have a much to answer for here at Boingboing. First it was the shrinking Japanese lady sushi porn, then the duck penis video, now this. There have been others too. I would say 8 of the top ten horrible scarring mental images that torment me have come from this web site. Seriously, damn.
Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet

Also, has any one researched the obvious mental illness of clicking on a link even though you have been warned?
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Ooooooh. *intrigued*
- eviladrian
  
  It’s like when you see a wet paint sign, and you have to touch the wet paint just to check.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Do you do that with cholera quarantine signs, too?
  - Jerril
    
    Another one of my favourites is “Oh damn, this tastes horrible. Here, you gotta try it!” … and then people do. Every. Time.
http://twitter.com/Wolfie_Rankin Wolfie Rankin

Coffee, Tea, Ginger Beer or Hot Chocolate?
alex4point0

As an Australian, my first concern is this: We must move the Echidna from the five cent piece to the twenty cent piece as soon as possible. #maths http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Australian_Five_Cents_Rev.png
- snailspace
  
  Or instead, have a special-edition 4-cent piece. I mean, look at where the number is on that coin. False advertising.
BombBlastLightingWaltz

Spare me the sexyal proclivities of the male echidnas, I have enough problems already.