The short-beaked echidna is one of four living species of echidna. It is covered in fur and spines, has a distinctive snout to help detect its surroundings, and uses a specialized tongue to catch insects. Its extremely strong front limbs and claws allow it to burrow quickly. It repels predators by curling into a ball and deters them with its spines. During the Australian winter, it goes into deep torpor and hibernation. As the temperature increases, it emerges to mate. Female echidnas lay one egg a year and the mating period is the only time the solitary animals meet. A newborn echidna grows rapidly on their mother's milk and is expelled into the mother's burrow when they grow too large for the mother's pouch. They leave the burrow when they are around six months old. The species is found throughout Australia and in coastal and highland regions of eastern New Guinea. It is not threatened with extinction, but human activities have reduced its distribution in Australia.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-beaked_echidna

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1509:

Catherine of Aragon married King Henry VIII of England, becoming the first of his six wives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Aragon

1923:

Kitosh, an African labourer, died after having been flogged by his British employer, in a case that eventually led to reform of the legal system of the Kenya Colony. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Abraham_murder_case

1963:

Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c

2008:

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

rheumy: 1. Of, relating to, or made of rheum (“thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum”); watery. 2. Producing rheum from the mucous membranes; (also figuratively) especially of the eyes: filled with rheum; watery. 3. (literary, poetic, obsolete) Especially of the air: damp, moist. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rheumy

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

There's reason good, that you good laws should make: Men's manners ne'er were viler, for your sake.   --Ben Jonson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson