Australian echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is one of the subspecies, endemic in New Guinea. Echidna can be met in the eastern and western parts of Australian continent, in Tasmania and New Guinea. The existence of this animal was discovered during colonization of New South Wales and had not been paid as much attention as it deserved. In 1792 Show and Nodder described Australian echidna and called it Echidna aculeata. The Tasmanian specie was described by Joffroix and was called Echidna setosa. The echidna is a typically surface animal. It lives in dry bushes, preferring stone areas. It doesn’t make burrows. Its main protection from the enemies is the needles. Being disturbed, echidna convolves into a ball, like a hedgehog. With it’s claws help it can partly bury itself into loose earth; burying the forehand of body, it leaves only sharp needles on the surface, pointed to the enemy. In the daytime, lying in the emptinesses under the roots, stones or in the hollows, echidna rests. In the night it searches the insects. When it is cold, echidna stays in its den, falling into short hibernation, like the hedgehogs do. The supplies of hypodermic fat allow her, in the case of necessity, starve for a month and more. The echidna’s brain is much more developed, than the platypus’s brain. It has a very keen hearing, but really bad vision: it sees only the closest things. During its excursions, mostly in the nighttime, it uses its great sense of smell. Echidna eats ants, termites and other insects, but sometimes another animals (rain worms etc.) It beggars the ant-hills, moves the stones, pushing them with the paws, even pretty heavy stones, under which it finds worms and insects. The power of echidna’s muscles is unbelievable for such a small animal. There is a story about a zoologist, who left an echidna in his kitchen for a night. In the morning he was amazed when he found out, that the echidna has moved all the furniture in the kitchen. When it finds an insect, it throws out its thin, long and sticky tongue, which catches the insect. Echidna doesn’t have any teeth, but on the other side of its tongue there are horny teeth, which grind caught insects. With the tongue’s help echidna catches not only the insects, but also ground and detritus, which, after getting into the stomach, complete grinding the food. As well as the platypus, echidna hatches the eggs and feeds its babies with milk. The only egg is placed in a primitive bag, which appears during the season of reproduction. It is unknown, how an egg gets into that bag. G. Burrell proved, that echidna can’t do that with its paws, and created another hypothesis: echidna’s body is flexible enough, so the female can place the egg directly into the abdominal bag. To get out from an egg, the baby breaks up a shell by a horny bump on a nose. Then it pushes its head into the sac, covered with hairsprings, where milk glands are placed, and licks off the milk. The baby stays in the bag for a long time, until the needles don’t appear. Then mother leaves it in the den, but completes to visit and feed it with milk. Echidna can live well in the conditions of captivity, if it is well protected from the sun. It drinks milk with pleasure, eats eggs and other food. Echidna’s favorite food is raw eggs. Echidnas can live for 27 years.