Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogebam here a. While be a kidnap is considered a mammal because it's warm blooded, has hair on its body, and produces milk for its young. This large hedgehog like creature is in a class of its own or very nearly. Kitnas are monotreames that means they're mammals that lay eggs. For that reason, they're named
after mythological monsters. In Greek mythology, Kitna was a half woman, half snake creature perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. There are only five species of monotreams in the world, four species of a chidnas, plus the duck billed platypus. The kidnap also has its own distinct look. For the article. This episode is based on hows to Work. Spoke by email with Rick Schwartz, San Diego Zoo Global Ambassador.
He said the body of a short peaked to kidna has dark fur, almost completely hidden by a covering of hollow, barblous quills called spines on its back and sides, while long beaked kidneys have little fur and more visible spines. The Beiesian black spines on all a kidney species are about two inches or five centimeters long and help camouflage the kidney in the brush. They have very short legs, ideal for digging. Kidneys have a tiny face with small
eyes and long or short noses, sometimes called beaks. Their body is quite stocky, measuring from fifteen to thirty inches long that's thirty five to seventy cis and weighing for five to twenty pounds that's two to twenty kilos. With those spines, they do look a bit like a hedgehog or porcupine mixed with an ant eater, but they aren't closely related to any of the above. The spines are made of caratin, like our pair and fingernails, and are
a defensive measure against predators. If they can't run or hide, they can curl up into a spiny ball. They're found throughout Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, from the highlands to the deserts to the forests. The kidneys eat ants, grubs, and termites, so digging for food is key. Areas with loose top soil are ideal, though they can plow through hard packed dirt as well, and they also take advantage of a very strong sense of smell to locate their
food underground or beneath wood or leaf litter. And they also have a sixth sense that's most often associated with sharks, electro reception, a specialized cells in their faces are sensitive to the electromagnetic signals that living things make when they move around. They're the only land mammals that have this sense. However, what they don't have is teeth. Instead, they use their sticky, long, slender tongue to catch their food, but they do chew
in a way. A short said hard pads at the base of the tongue and on the roof of its mouth grind food into a paste for swallowing. A kid This have the lowest body temperature of any mammal, around eighty nine point six fahrenheit that's thirty two celsius. Schwartz explained their long lifespans up to fifty years and managed settings are due to their low body temperature and slow metabolism. A kidnap reading season is during July and August winter
in Australia, and their courtship rituals are complex. Schwartz said male a kidnas often line up behind a female nose to tail, forming long trains up to ten a kidness long. When the female is finally ready to mate, the males dig a trench in the ground around her. The males compete for mating honors by pushing each other out of the trench. The last one remaining gets to mate with
the female. Female kidnas have a two branched reproductive tract and male a kidnas have a four headed penis to match, and Schwartz explained during sex, two of the heads shut down while the other two grow bigger. A kidnas alternate which heads they use when mating with different partners to improve their chances of becoming a father. An adult female kidna usually lays a single leathery egg once a year.
Schwartz said. She rolls the newly laid egg, about the size of a grape, into a deep pocket or pouch on her belly to keep it safe, and ten days later, the baby a kidna called a puggle hatches. It weighs only about half as much as a miniature marshmallow, and the puggle uses its tiny sea through claws to grip the special hairs within the mother's pouch. The mother does not have nipples the way other mammals do. Instead, the little puggle laps at milk that the mother's body secretes
from special glands in her pouch, he continued. Fortunately for the mother, the puggle does not yet have spines sticking out. It remains in the pouch until its spines begin to break through its skin at about fifty three days. Then the mother puts the puggle into a burrow, where she returns to feed it every five to ten days until it's big enough to go out on its own at
about seven months old. Today's episode is based on the article the Kidna is one of the World's Strangest Mammals on how stuff Works dot Com, written by Wendy Bowman. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.