Monotremes 'R' Us.

[pat]

My youngest son is obsessed with echidnas. He wants one as a pet. He wants to grow up and move to Australia and be either a zoologist or zookeeper and work with, you guessed it, echidnas. He was home from school today with an earache and spent his time on the web researching information about echidnas. Not for school, but simply because he loves echidnas. We even talked about the origin of the name "echidna," from Greek mythology.

Did you know that a baby echidna is called a puggle? No, neither did I.

And his second greatest obsession, after echidnas, are platypuses, or platypi, whatever. A baby platypus is called a puggle, as well.

I have weird kids. I would not trade them for the world.

Comments

[kayre]

Allow me to introduce you both to [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]... he does animal rescue work in Australia, including the occasional echidna. If you search back about a year ago you'll find pics, feeding info, etc.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it! :):)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

You need to acquaint yourself to dewhitton, who hand-rears puggles to return them to the wild. It's almost springtime, puggle season is upon us. :)

(Poke around in his LJ of 8-10 months ago, perhaps.)

He also rears bats.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think it is K's fault, but if I ever get a pug, I think I have to name it echinda.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Echidnas are very cool. Last time I was at Taronga Zoo (Sydney) the keeper told this cool story about how they got just about the first-ever information about echidna mating because a couple of echidnas chose to get it on just in front of the security camera one night.

And when I visited Lone Pine (a koala-and-other- Australian-animals park) earlier this year with some visitors, we got to see a newly-employed keeper being taught how to get an echidna out of the half-holes they dig, so it could be weighed.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Very sweet...