Echidnas

Echidnas are my favourite land animal in Australia. I've yet to decide if the kookaburra or the pelican take first place for the sky, but cuttlefish definitely take the wet cake.

Is it a hedgehog? Noooo. This bad boy is a monotreme, along the same lines as a platypus... both freaks of nature to those of us the 21st century. These guys are mammals that lay eggs. Freakishly cool.

Here's a couple of echidnas at the zoo:


We saw an echidna in South Australia, on Kangaroo Island, and my dad got out for a good photo. I need to get that photo off of dad.

In the meantime, here's some information about how echidnas mate:

• The female starts cruising down the street
• Males smell that sexy female echidna and follow
• The female continues until she has a long line of contenders
• She leads the train into an open area and walks in a circle repeatedly to form a ring
• The female goes to the centre of the ring and digs in so that only her backside is exposed.
• The males enter a steel cage match
• Each male tries to push the rest out of the circle
• The male remaining crawls into the hole with the female
• And we get baby echidnas

Thylacine - The Tasmanian Tiger

The Thylacine, commonly called the Tasmanian Tiger, was classified as extinct in 1936. After the animal had been hunted as a pest for decades, the last one died in captivity in the Hobart Zoo. Like many animals native to Australia, however, the Thylacine was probably on its way out as a result of introduced species even if bounties had not gone out head-hunting. The tassie was at the top of the food chain in Australia, munching on smaller marsupials until dingos were introduced to the mainland about 1500 years ago. Dingos were better hunters and the Tasmanian tiger couldn't hold its own. On the island of Tasmania, dogs, cats, foxes, and the like were introduced much later, so the Thylacine kicked on for a bit longer down there. Since they were marsupials, the young joeys did stay in the pouch. There are frequent sightings of Thylacines, primarily in Tasmania, but also on the mainland. Cryptozoologists arms themselves with cameras and head off into the bush. No photographs have been proven 100% guaranteed legitimate, but the search continues. If you make your way to Tassie, bring a camera. Or bring your golden retriever and paint a few stripes on his back.

Bob Hawke & a Yard of Beer

While he was prime mister of Australia, Bob Hawke held the Guinness world record for fastest consumption of a yard of beer: 11 seconds. That's 1.7 litres of beer, or nearly 58 ounces. To give you an idea of how much beer this is, the "beer yard" most of us are familiar with is only a half yard (pictured).

This is the first Aussie Fact O The Week. I'll try to include a bit of Australiana once a week before we ship off. Sometimes I'll comment on them... but this one needs no comment. If you've even been to Australia, you're probably not surprised by this fact.