Despite some very thoughtful and educated guesses by our readership, Gumbo was elusive this time around.
Gumbo was traveling with some biologists in southern Australia (Kangaroo Island to be precise) and was fascinated to see this baby short-beaked echidna, also known as a "Puggle". It is the rarest baby animal Gumbo's ever seen (note: this is not a zoo photo but one taken in the "bush"). Puggles are carried in their mother's pouches so it's rare to know the mother is with child unless you've closely followed her (the mother of this Puggle tracked by a group of field biologists on Kangaroo Island, using radiotelemetry).
(removing the Puggle from the mother's pouch)
(baby small-beaked Echidna, known as a "Puggle")
Echidnas, also known as spiny anteaters, are egg-laying mammals (monotremes) found only in Australia and New Guinea. The female lays a small soft-shelled leathery egg which is deposited into her belly pouch. The young echidna hatches in about 10 days, the youngster sucking on milk from one of two milk patches (monotremes do not have nipples). The series of photos show a group of scientists in Southern Australia removing the young baby echidna from its mother's pouch, something rarely photographed. The puggle at this point lacks hair and spines and is effectively blind, but when placed back in its mother's pouch will continue to grow and develop sharp spines at about 45 days old. The mother then digs a burrow to deposit the spiny Puggle and continues to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months.
(mature short-beaked echidnas, Australia)
Echidnas are small solitary shy mammals covered with broad but sharp spines and coarse hair. Their diet consists largely of ants and termites, but they are not in any way related to anteaters of Central and South America, nor are the related to other spiny mammals, like porcupines or hedgehogs. They have very short, strong limbs with large heavy claws, and are powerful diggers, all the better to uproot anthills or termite mounds with. Echidnas have tiny mouths and toothless jaws. The echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs, anthills and the like, and using its long, sticky extensible tongue, which protrudes from its snout, to collect insects. It has a raspy palate which it uses to break the exoskeleton of the insects it ingests to aid in digestion. Echidnas live up to 50 years in the wild.
In the clues update (click here for that link) there were also photos of a large goanna lizard which is related to monitor lizards. There was a photo of sheep in pastures, not that common on Kangaroo Island, and very eroded rocks that are lichen covered from the shore. These bear some resemblance to those seen in the Remarkable Rocks of Flinders Chase National Park, but the photos are not of those rocks.
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