Spatial ecology of a ubiquitous Australian anteater, the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)

Abstract

The only specialized ant-eating mammal in Australia and New Guinea is the egg-laying short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus), and this single species occurs throughout Australia in a wide range of habitats. Despite the diversity of habitats and density and distribution of prey species, home-range sizes throughout Australia seem remarkably similar. We radiotracked echidnas in a population in Tasmania over a 13-year period and calculated home-range sizes using the fixed kernel method and the minimum convex polygon method. No relationship was found between body mass and home-range size, and mean annual home-range size of males (90% kernels) was 107 ha 6 48 SD, twice that of females (48 6 28 ha). Male home ranges overlapped considerably and also overlapped with those of several females. The echidna follows the pattern seen in many solitary eutherian mammals: both sexes are promiscuous, and males have larger home ranges than females. Echidnas show a high degree of home-range fidelity but can make rare excursions out of their normal area. Hibernating echidnas move between shelters during their periodic arousals, resulting in home-range sizes similar to those of the active period. Consistent with their very low metabolic rate, echidnas have home-range sizes considerably smaller than predicted for carnivorous or omnivorous mammals. Examination of data from other ant-eating mammals shows that as a group anteaters not only have smaller than predicted home ranges but they depart significantly from the normal relationship between home-range size and body mass.

Conditional same/different concept learning in the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)

“…Clutton-Brock & Harvey, 1980;Herman, 2002;Jolly, 1966). Echidnas have no real predators (except man) and virtually no social structure (Griffiths, 1978;1989), and their home range is smaller than comparably sized eutherian mammals (Nicol, Vanpé, Sprent, Morrow, & Andersen, 2011). They do have a relatively long life span (up to 50 years in captivity, Augee et al, 2006), which has been linked to large relative brain size (Harvey, Martin, & Clutton-Brock, 1987), although the mechanisms by which this factor contributes to brain development has not yet been fully explained.…”

Observations of breeding behaviour and possible infanticide in a wild population of Tasmanian echidnas (Tachyglossus aculeatus setosus)

“…Observations reported here were made as part of a long-term study on ecological and physiological aspects of Tasmanian echidnas (T. a. setosus) at our field site in the southern midlands (42 28 0 S, 142 14 0 E), located~55 km north of Hobart (for details see Nicol et al 2011). Between January 1996 and December 2013, 276 individual echidnas have been captured and fitted with passive implantable (PIT) tags for identification.…”

Brain and behaviour of living and extinct echidnas

“…Body weight of T. aculeatus from southeastern Australia and Tasmania can range up to 6.5 kg (Griffiths, 1968) but has an average of 3.9 kg for males and 3.4 kg for females (range of 2-7 kg; Nicol et al, 2011;Nicol, 2013). Data on body weights for the long-beaked echidnas are scarce.…”