Comments on: Baby echidnas are called puggles and they are ADORABLE

By: An Infinitude of Tortoises

An Infinitude of Tortoises — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 21:29:00 +0000

And perhaps they did….

By: Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:40:00 +0000

Echidna in a cooler!

By: Itsumishi

Itsumishi — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 07:17:00 +0000

Sure is mate.

By: cjporkchop

cjporkchop — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 05:05:00 +0000

I don’t have a source, but I seem to recall reading/hearing somewhere that animals with very rich/thick milk don’t have to feed their young as often as animals with more watery milk. Humans and kittens fall into the watery end of the spectrum.

By: B E Pratt

B E Pratt — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 02:49:00 +0000

I live at a place that has god nose how many possums (surely under 10 at this area) and something like 7-10 feral cats. The cats, wisely I think, just give the possums the evil eye and let them go on about their business. Too smart to waste their energy on them.

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:39:00 +0000

How is it that mama echidna can leave them so long without milk? Similarly undeveloped baby kittehs would die if left so long. I understand that the Virginia Opossum has a slow metabolism, which is why when my cat was in a fight with a possum the possum didn’t back down. My cat was smashing the crap out of the possum and the possum just stood there gaping his hissing mouth with 80 teeth. If the possum had fought back I am sure my cat would have gone for a throat bite or a belly rake, but the possum just stood there. Confused the shit out of my cat. I whacked the possum five times with a broom before it left.

Do echidnas have even a lower metabolic rate?

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:28:00 +0000

Tardigrades are not cute, they are frightening. You wanna terraform a planet? Keep bombing it with tardigrades, they will find a way.

By: hughstimson

hughstimson — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:26:00 +0000

That explains why I didn’t find any echidna babies.

By: Dan Gordon

Dan Gordon — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 22:09:00 +0000

It’s an Esky, which I believe is called a cooler on the eastern side of the Pacific

By: Jonathan Peterson

Jonathan Peterson — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:18:00 +0000

sweet jeebus – it’s like a smaller version of the chestburster in aliens. unicorn chaser – STAT

By: hughstimson

hughstimson — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:11:00 +0000

Wait. At the end. Why does she put it in a box? Do they store them in boxes?

There are boxes here. Are there echidna babies in any of these boxes? I will check.

By: UFIA

UFIA — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:00:00 +0000

There’s a sixth leg here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=JKZcf0KBo-U

By: zibuki

zibuki — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:47:00 +0000

This is a good start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXEC1Qx4cJg

By: that_music

that_music — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:44:00 +0000

uhhh… that “fifth leg” you can see in this video is actually its tail…
From the NatGeo article you linked to: “A male’s echidna’s crown jewels are all stored inside his body so from the outside Grumpy looks like a lady.”

@boingboing-30649c91c86ba5388e401109501718ff:disqus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXEC1Qx4cJg this is probably as close as you’re going to get, since the egg actually hatches *inside* the mothers pouch.

By: John Radi

John Radi — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:38:00 +0000

Sorry, but echidnas are enough to convince me to figure out how to filter out future echidna related posts.. Isn’t there a chrome plugin for that?

By: OldBrownSquirrel

OldBrownSquirrel — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:20:00 +0000

Y’know, what I’d really like to see is video of one of those things *hatching*.

By: OldBrownSquirrel

OldBrownSquirrel — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:19:00 +0000

Little dairy Hoovers!

By: Sekino

Sekino — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:13:00 +0000

They definitely have a tardigrade-like cuteness.