Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I've been hesitant to make an appearance now that Lukas has talked me up so much...
(There are links in the dooblydoo if that joke didn't make sense.)
But here I am, mildly terrified and having a ball.
A few months ago I visited a pretty place called Daylesford with my mother.
We stayed in a lovely little mud brick studio, and didn't drink Mount Franklin water,
and we came across an echidna in the undergrowth. I sat by the path and it wandered around
mostly oblivious,
sticking its beak in the ground to look for ants, and we shared this space quite happily
for a few minutes before moving on.
I went back to the car to edit some poems on my phone 'cause that's what I do with my
spare time,
and my mother went for a walk. She came back to find the echidna curled up in a very frightened ball
while a man poked a stick at it because he wanted to 'see its face'.
Now I'm no wildlife expert but I have this theory - hear me out -
that poking an animal with a stick will in fact make said animal less likely
to look at you with compassion, curiosity, and a sense of inter-species friendship (not like that).
I tested this theory on my brother Josh, drawing positive conclusions.
'What're you doing? Get off!'
Anyway, my mother was like
only she doesn't talk like that at all - unless I ask her very nicely.
'Say "dude, stahp."' 'Dude, stop?' 'Kinda?'
and the guy was all, 'THEIR SPINES ARE POISONOUS! AND-AND THEY EAT RATS!' Or something.
My mother actually thought he was Australian so it was surprising to
hear him utter
such profound untruths about one of this country's shyest,
least terrify animals. And you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of this:
"'Make it move,' he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass but the
snake didn't budge."
And you know what else it reminded me of? This widespread belief that just about everything in Australia is
deadly,
which while partially true doesn't take into account some of the cuter animals here about which
even the locals seem to know
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So here are five real facts about echidnas.
I don't have any more echidna footage. I could ask permission from other creators
to use theirs, but Ze Frank seems to have that under control . . . so
I'm just going to use what's at hand, and what's at hand is mostly cardboard.
The echidna is a monotreme, or a mammal that lays eggs
like some kind of crazy bear-snake-bird, a species closely related to the man-bear-pig.
Ah man. My first and probably last South Park joke.
In Greek mythology, Echidna was a serpent lady known as the 'mother of all monsters', because she mothered
pretty much
all the other monsters, like Cerberus the three-headed dog
(which is a great name for a children's book), and gorgons.
Their taxonomic name means 'fast tongue' and they use this for eating ants, not rats.
They do not eat rats. And their spines are not poisonous. Though the serpent lady probably was.
Echidna quills are basically just really tough, hollow hair follicles,
unlike the cardboard spines on this cat.
Long-beaked echidnas are actually from New Guinea but I had to include Natalie Angier's
description of them in the New York Times:
'lump, terrier-size creatures abristle with so many competing notes of crane, mole, pig, turtle,
tribble, Babar and boot scrubber that if they didn't exist, nobody would think to Photoshop them.'
This has been Heidi in disguise, I hope you enjoyed it. For more commentary
and silly hats, hit Subscribe. Does this count as a silly hat?
Discuss in comments.