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Echidna Biomechanics

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Ever wonder what an echidna does with all its time?  The echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus ) is a spiny ball of monotreme that looks something like this. Those spines are sharp mind you, and often leave a weird irritating/itchy marks on your skin after they stab into you. Given that its close relative the Platypus ( Ornithorhynchus anatinus ) has poisonous spurs on its hind limbs makes me wonder whether those spines aren't filled with something nasty. My point is that pretty much nothing is going to try to eat an echidna. Some germans once wrote a paper on what happens when you do. They came across the body of one of Australia's top predators, and one of my favourite animals, the Perentie ( Varanus giganteus ) which had the brave, yet somehow transparently stupid idea, to attempt eat an echidna whole and had in doing so met its own demise. The photo is from Kirschner  et al . (1996), via    Darren Naish 's blog .  The perentie had come across the echidna (dead or