Our mascot is Anton the Echidna (Short Beak Echidna). His name was chosen by competition in 2024 and he has been adopted by all the rew. He visits on location for our Outside Broadcasts (OBs) and has turned up at various locations on the island for a photo op with other locals and guests.
Here are a few fun facts about Echidnas
- The Echidna has porcupine-like spines, a more tubular like bird beak, quoll-like pouch and lays eggs like a reptile. It also feeds their young on milk (like all mammals) but have no nipples – the milk just oozes out of the skin in the pouch and the puggle (baby echidna) licks it up.
- Echidnas have toothless jaws and not one single tooth. Instead, they put their slender snouts and strong claws to work, tearing open logs, ant hills and other food sources, then use their long sticky tongues (up to 15cm long!) and pads on the roof of their mouth to break down their food.
- These guys love a great meal of ants, termites, worms and insect larvae – and can eat up to 40,000 per day!
- Once a female echidna lays the egg into her pouch, it will hatch after roughly 10 days – emerging the size of a jellybean, blind and hairless! It’s in their mother’s pouch that they spend the first seven weeksof life, and are left in a burrow when the puggles become too big and prickly as their spines start developing.
Appearances can be deceiving when it comes to the Echidna… while they might look fearsome lending to their spiny exterior, these animals are actually quite shy. Being confronted by a predator or becoming frightened, they’ll curl up into a ball, tucking in its snout and legs – both hiding and protecting themselves with an armour of spikes.- They are named after a creature from Greek mythology (Echidna).who was half-woman and half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammal and reptile.
Go on the internet and you can search for more great fun facts about ECHIDNAS.
Anton may also visit you in his travels around Kangaroo Island.
