Posts Tagged ‘Australian animals’

Echidna

• The Echidna is a mammal but a unique one at that, like the platypus it is the only other egg-laying mammal on the planet.
• The echidna lay eggs that have a soft shell and the female carries them in her pouch for two weeks when they hatch and only produce one egg at a time. Once hatched the young echidna remains in the pouch for approximately 50 weeks by which time the baby would have grown spikes. The baby is then transferred by the mother to a nursery burrow where she returns every few days to feed the baby until it’s about 7 months old.
• Echidna young are called Puggles.
• The echidna has a very long tongue, approx 18cm in length but it has no teeth. The tongue is quite sticky and as its diet consists of ants and termites this works quite well.
• When faced with attack, the echidna will either burrow to safety or curl up in a ball showing only the spikes covering its body.

At Australian Native T-Shirts we sell Echidna products such as pewter figurines, t-shirts and cute plush toys – click here to check them out.

Photo credit: wendishness

Tasmanian Devil

• The Tasmanian Devil stores body fat in its tail and an unhealthy devil often has a thin tail.
• An analysis of mammalian bite force, corrected for body size, shows that the Tasmanian Devil has the strongest bite of any living mammal.
• Because it is a marsupial, a Tasmanian devil gives birth to very immature young which develop further while in the mother’s pouch.
• Tasmanian Devils are mainly scavengers – they mainly feed on the dead bodies of wallabies and sheep, Tasmanian devils will take other smaller animals as prey.
• When angered, the ears of Tasmanian devils turn a pinkish-red.
• The Tasmanian Devil was named for the sound of its scream.

In our store we sell Tasmanian Devil products such as pewter figurines as well as cute Tassie Devil plush toys – click here to view them.

Photo credit: wendishness

Thanks to everyone who entered the November Caption Competition, again we saw some great entries and it’s hard to narrow them down to a few. We have selected the top five for voting.

Voting closes on 30th November at 6.00pm (AEDT) and only one vote per person but feel free to let others know about the voting and don’t forget to join in next month’s caption competition which starts on December 1st! What’s on offer with the new competition? You’ll have to come back to find out

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Tree Kangaroos

• Tree kangaroos can leap 60 feet (18m) to the ground from trees without getting hurt.
• Instead of sweating, tree kangaroos lick their forearms and allow the evaporation to help cool their bodies.
• Young tree kangaroos are called joeys.
• Tree kangaroos move with agility in trees and can leap downward several yards to another tree or the ground. When they descend a tree more slowly, they back down.

Photo credit: wendishness