TAXONOMY, DISTRIBUTION AND STATUS
The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is a heterothermic, egg laying mammal that is a specialist ant and termite (myrmecophagous) insectivore. There are five morphologically distinct (pelage and claw variations) and geographically specific subspecies (Augee et al.
2006). Mating behaviour, maternal care, lactation period and thermal biology differ significantly between the subspecies (Nicol et al. 2019b).There are three New Guinean long-beaked echidna species: Zaglossus bruijni, Z. bartoni and Z. attenboroughi (Augee et al. 2006; Baillie et al. 2009). Thought to be extinct in Australia from 10 000 yr ago, there is some dispute whether Zaglossus existed in the Kimberley, WA in the 20th century (Helgen et al. 2012; Burbidge 2018).
Short-beaked echidnas are native to Australia and New Guinea. They are found throughout Australia, including offshore islands, and within a greater diversity of habitats than any other Australian mammal (Augee et al. 2006). Although IUCN listed as ‘least concern’ (Aplin et al. 2016), their role as critical ecosystem engineers is increasingly important due to the loss of most Australian digging mammals (Dundas et al. 2022).
This chapter, complemented by several other chapters and appendices within this volume, presents advances in short-beaked echidna medicine since the publication of Vogelnest and Woods (2008). Life history, anatomy, physiology, reproduction, nutrition, medicine and pathology are covered comprehensively in Middleton (2008), Ladds (2009), Holz (2014, 2015), Nicol (2015), Vogelnest and Allan (2015), Higgins et al. (2018), Rismiller et al. (2019), Shaw (2022) and Chapters 5 and 14 in this volume; this chapter should be read alongside these texts and chapters. Within this chapter, ‘echidna’ refers only to the short- beaked echidna.
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