[HN Gopher] The Echidna Is Australia's Most Delightfully Differe...
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The Echidna Is Australia's Most Delightfully Different Mammal
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 65 points
Date : 2022-08-05 05:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| oblak wrote:
| I just realized I hadn't heard/read that word - echidna - in
| about three decades. The downfalls of not watching TV I suppose.
| Looking at the pictures, they seem to be cute little critters.
| Wonder if it would be possible to befriend one
| bitwize wrote:
| > The evolutionary marvel mates in love trains, can swim in the
| ocean, and even uses jazz hands as a defensive tactic.
|
| This strapline is bound to generate some... interesting Knuckles
| fan art.
|
| I had the good fortune of seeing a female echidna, licking honey
| from a bowl held by a caretaker, at the Australia Zoo shortly
| before departing. They are truly fascinating critters, cute in
| their own way.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Here in Tasmania I've stopped a few times to shoo them off the
| road, most effective way to date has been to wrap a towel around
| one and drag it. They don't seem to enjoy that very much at all,
| but I figure they enjoy being driven over less.
| Humphrey wrote:
| Was once [ignorantly] trying to help encourage an echidna to get
| off a busy road next to my house, but it burrowed down into the
| cement curb gutter. It managed to use its quills to hold onto the
| cement, and there was not a chance of moving it. I couldn't
| believe how strongly it could hold onto what I thought as smooth
| cement.
| tus666 wrote:
| Wtf is this doing on obscura? You are acting like they are
| extinct or extremely rare. They are very common in certain areas.
| They are fun to flip over.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Please don't do that. They don't like it.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I love those little dudes!
|
| I just moved to Sydney and saw them at the Taronga zoo... and I'd
| never even heard of one before. Strangest little creatures.
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| If you've just moved to Sydney, then there's a reasonably good
| chance of spotting them if you live outside of the city itself
| and walk around near bushland.
|
| The /r/sydney subreddit is regularly full of reports of people
| spotting them when the Echidnas are more active during mating
| season.
| telman17 wrote:
| I love the echidna. I did a science project on it in 5th grade.
| My mom helped me do a clay sculpture of it and I remember having
| a blast putting in all the "spines". Was also an avid og sonic
| the hedgehog player so it seemed like these little guys were
| everywhere during that time.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| They are super cute and I always get a kick whenever I see one on
| a walk. No idea why they are named after "the mother of
| monsters", early Europeans must have been on another planet
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echidna_(mythology)
| markdown wrote:
| Please don't kid these creatures. They're harmless.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| "Get a kick" = "enjoy", not a literal kick.
| markdown wrote:
| I forget I'm not on Reddit, where my silliness would have
| gotten upvotes.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| Haha, yes I thought so but my experience on hn is any
| humor gets misread so just felt like I needed to clarify
| in case anyone thought I was a monster who goes around
| punting monotremes.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| they are quite common in Australia, saw a few earlier this year,
| by the roadside just rooting around in the grass. Don't seem to
| be too scared of humans either, I couldn't easily stooped and
| picked it up. Nice lads
| elromulous wrote:
| Thank you Sega for introducing me to the Echidna (sonic &
| knuckles)
| brian_herman wrote:
| Famous echidna in gaming:
| https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Knuckles_the_Echidna
| dymk wrote:
| Fun science fact: the echidnas' internal monologue is in the
| voice of Idris Elba.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Great article. Australia has the best animals. Even a mammal with
| an extremely painful venomous sting (the platypus), a pain that's
| not relieved by morphine.
|
| And the Tasmanian Devil, one of the nastiest looking little
| creatures on 4 legs I've ever seen.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_venom
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Nasty? No!
|
| They're adorable.
|
| I advocate for their domestication to anyone who'll listen.
|
| They're known to be very tame and friendly with in a short
| duration of repeated human closeness.
|
| Sure, an adult Devil could bite your hand off, but so can a
| dog, and Devils tend to prefer already dead things.
| yarg wrote:
| Poor little fighty bastards:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease.
|
| Human efforts at eradication left them with such low genetic
| diversity that contagious cancer became a thing.
|
| https://www.aussieark.org.au/tasmanian-devil/
| AlbertCory wrote:
| OK, well, each to his own. Everything in Oz can kill you
| anyway :)
|
| My "contact" was limited to watching one run around and
| around his cage at some zoo or animal preserve. He certainly
| looked plenty pissed off.
| yarg wrote:
| > run around and around his cage
|
| > He certainly looked plenty pissed off.
|
| Wouldn't you?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| are you talking about domesticating a Tasmanian Devil or a
| Platypus?
| mc32 wrote:
| It seems clear they're advocating for 'devils.
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(page generated 2022-08-06 23:00 UTC)