11/12/2023 0 Comments Platypus baby licking moms milk![]() In 1792 George Shaw (who would also publish the first scientific description of the platypus seven year later) included “The Porcupine Ant-Eater” in The Naturalist’s Miscellany. ![]() That mystery echidna popped back into my mind recently when re-reading the original species description on the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and I think I know the answer. Why does this taxidermy echidna at Manchester Museum have blue eyes? Photo Credit: Jack Ashby. I’ve come across tens of wrong-footed echidnas, and I know the reason why, but I was flummoxed a few years ago when I encountered an echidna with blue eyes at the Manchester Museum. In the case of the echidna, it is extremely common for the back feet to point in the wrong direction - in life they should point backwards (enabling echidnas to scratch in between their spines and dig vertically downwards to bury themselves in defense), but taxidermists often didn’t know that, so twisted their feet around. This means that their poses are often incorrect. The trouble is that throughout history, the person doing the taxidermy - particularly for specimens that had travelled to Europe from Australia - had often never seen the living animal. Taxidermy is intended to make visitors forget the animal is dead, and to achieve that a flat animal skin has to be rebuilt into the shape of a living animal. While museum specimens are in one sense a primary source, they are also modified by people in order to make them presentable to the public. This has made the topic of how animals are depicted - in writings, illustrations and museums - a real focus for me.Ī live (undoctored) echidna, in Tasmania. However, we wouldn’t be able to confirm exactly how these things are put to use without seeing them alive.Īs someone with one foot in the world of Australian mammal ecology (the living) and another in natural history museums (the dead), one thing that really interests me is the cross-over: how do the dead represent the living? Museums are sites of communication - they provide windows onto the natural world for people to engage with animals they may never see alive. ![]() The impenetrable coat of thick spines is clearly for defense against predators and guessing at an ant-eating lifestyle doesn’t require too much imagination when you think about what its narrow toothless snout and stout, digging claws might be for. ![]() Examining echidna specimens in museums helps us to understand their evolutionary relationships and enables us to come up with some reasonable suggestions for how they live their lives. Photo Credit: University of CambridgeĬonsider the echidna, for example. Platypuses will take care of their young until they are old enough to be left on their own.Taxidermy short-beaked echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus) from the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. The male platypus does not take any part in raising the young platypuses. When she returns, she pushes past these plugs, thereby forcing water from her fur and helping to keep the chamber dry. As she leaves the burrow, the mother platypus makes several thin plugs made of soil along the length of burrow this helps to protect the young from predators which would enter the burrow during the mother's absence. They are suckled by the mother for 3-4 months, during which time she only leaves them to forage for food. The young are blind, hairless and completely vulnerable. After she lays one to three eggs, which have already developed within her body for 28 days, she curls her body around the eggs to incubate them for another ten days.Īfter hatching, the mother platypus feeds her young on milk secreted from glands, rather than from teats. The mother platypus prepares a chamber at the end of a burrow especially for the purpose of protecting the young. Unlike the echidna, the other egg-laying mammal (or monotreme), the platypus does not develop a temporary pouch to incubate the eggs. Platypuses are one of two types of mammals which lay eggs.
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