Jennifer Lebeau is a wildlife care specialist at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.The now four-month-old puggle is now “gaining strength and thriving,” according to the a press release from the San Diego Zoo Global. Another fascinating thing about echidnas is that they have no external genitalia-and a female develops a pouch only when she is going to have a puggle (insert mind-blown emoji here!). We don’t yet know the sex of the puggles. We currently have five male echidnas, two females, and two puggles in our care. In addition to the two puggles successfully weaned at the Safari Park, the Brookfield Zoo and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay were each successful in hatching an echidna this year. While it is somewhat uncommon for puggles to hatch in zoos, this year has been incredible for short-beaked echidna propagation. Through the SSP, AZA manages the population of about 30 short-beaked echidnas in zoological institutions across the US. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance participates in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ (AZA) Species Survival Plan (SSP) for short-beaked echidnas.
The difference in the puggles from when mom first deposited them into the nursery burrow to when they emerged and started exploring on their own has been amazing! Once these curious, young echidnas start wandering around, it’s so much fun to watch them as they investigate everything.
My favorite thing about the puggles is watching how quickly they grow and change. Echidna puggle, at about five months old. We expect it to continue to nurse for a while, and estimate that it will start to show interest in the adult diet within the next couple of months. OJ just started to explore its world outside of the nursery burrow in mid-September. Although it was yet to be named, our team quickly took to calling this puggle “OJ” (for “Orange Junior”). We first saw Orange’s puggle on May 16, when it was about 66 days old. Remarkably, we observed similar behavior with our other female puggle, named Orange. It is starting to eat the adult echidna diet, but it still occasionally spends time with mom in the nest box and we suspect that during those visits, PJ is still nursing.
When the puggle was about four months old, Pink broke down the barrier for the last time, and PJ began to explore its new world. It was about 65 days old.Īfter about 100 days, young echidnas have developed thick fur and are better able to maintain body temperature on their own. (In their native habitat, this also helps keep predators out.) Once Pink started leaving PJ in a nursery burrow, we were able to finally see it with our own eyes. To keep the little puggle warm while she was away, she back-filled the tunnel opening with dirt after each visit, to help stabilize the burrow temperature. From that point forward, she returned to feed PJ every three to five days. When PJ grew too big to carry in her pouch (at about two months old), Pink deposited it in a nursery burrow. Pink behaved exactly as her counterparts in their native Australia do. Without an official name yet, the wildlife care team began to refer to this puggle affectionately as “PJ” (for “Pink Junior”). It’s difficult to confirm that there is a puggle in an echidna’s pouch, but finally, we saw-via remote camera-a puggle foot hanging out of Pink’s pouch! At this point, we estimated the puggle was about 55 days old. But unlike other mammals, monotremes don’t have nipples or teats a puggle sucks or laps milk from its mother’s fur near two “milk patches” in her pouch.
Like other mammals, mother echidnas produce milk for their young. For the next two months or so, it continues its development, snuggled up safe and warm in its mother’s pouch. For the first four days, its lungs aren’t developed enough to breathe, and it respires through its skin.
Puggles platypus baby skin#
Its eyes are undeveloped, and its unpigmented, hairless skin is semi-translucent. After somehow managing to nudge the leathery egg into her pouch(!), she stays in the shelter for 10 to 11 days, until the egg hatches.Ī tiny, fetus-like echidna hatchling still has a lot of developing to do. About three weeks after mating, she seeks out a shelter and lays a single, grape-size egg. Behind the Scenesįor the first couple of months after a successful mating, here’s what we couldn’t see:īetween mating and egg-laying, a female echidna develops a pouch. We weren’t able to confirm pregnancy, but based on the behavior of our two females-named Pink and Orange-we were hopeful. We confirmed breeding behavior in the echidnas in our care via remote video footage. Like the platypus, echidnas are monotremes-a small group of unusual, egg-laying mammals. The adorable little ball of cuteness at the top of this page is a baby echidna, also known as a puggle.
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