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The Echidna.

I have compiled this story mainly from the internet. The animal is one that I don’t see often and don’t know alot about. There is a link at the bottom of the page which takes you to an article on the Echidna, it is interesting and short. The parts that are copied are in blue and some come from the article from the link shown at the bottom.
Echidnas are egg-layingmammals. Along with the platypus, the echidna is a member of themonotremes, an order of egg-laying mammals found in Australia. After mating, a female echidna lays a single, soft-shelled, leathery egg, about the size of a dime, into her pouch.
The Echidnais a spiky little fellow that one doesn’t find frequently. When approached it will burrow it’s feet and snout into the earth and just can’t be picked up, not that one would want to. If found on ground that is too hard to dig into it will roll into a ball. It lives on ants and termites, they are day workers except in very hot weather when they go on night shift.
As some other posters have already said, echidnas are monotremes, hedgehogsare insectivores and porcupines are rodents. They are all mammals though. ...One of the major differences is that echidnas are actually monontremes (egg laying mammals) while hedgehogs and porcupineare not. (they give live birth).Nov 8, 2015
Now here’san interesting situation, maybe some readers could feel quite envious.
Echidnas typically breed between Julyand August. Mating for echidnas is quite unusual. Males have four-headed penises and the females have a two-branch reproductive tract. Only two of the heads are active at a time. It is thought that the four heads help males produce more sperm and enables them to become more competitive against other males

A female usually lays one egg at atime. The egg goes into a pouch on her stomach to incubate. After seven to 10 days, the egg is ready to hatch, according to the Animal Diversity Web. When it hatches, a baby echidna, called a puggle, is about half an inch (12 millimeters) long and weighs 0.02 ounces or about half a gram.The puggle stays in its mother's pouch for another six to eight weeks, which give its spines time to harden.
https://www.livescience.com/57267-echidna-facts.html


Tomorrow, the duck billed platypus.
Picture from the internet.