AnAge entry for Tachyglossus aculeatus
Classification (HAGRID: 02623)
- Taxonomy
-
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia (Taxon entry)
Order: Monotremata
Family: Tachyglossidae
Genus: Tachyglossus
- Species
- Tachyglossus aculeatus
- Common name
- Short-beaked echidna
Lifespan, ageing, and relevant traits
- Maximum longevity
- 49.5 years (captivity)
- Source
- ref. 671
- Sample size
- Medium
- Data quality
- Acceptable
- Observations
These are relatively long-lived animals. There are anecdotal reports of one animal living over 50 years in captivity [0434]. The record longevity, however, belongs to a 49.5 year-old female kept at Philadelphia Zoo [0671]. These animals have also been reported to live up to 48 years in the wild [0835].
Life history traits (averages)
- Female sexual maturity
- 548 days
- Male sexual maturity
- 548 days
- Incubation
- 22 days
- Weaning
- 200 days
- Clutch size
- 1 (oviparous)
- Clutches per year
- Inter-litter interval
- 730 days
- Weight at hatching
- 0.379 g
- Weight at weaning
- 400 g
- Adult weight
- 3,500 g
- Postnatal growth rate
- 0.013 days-1 (from Gompertz function)
- Maximum longevity residual
- 290%
Metabolism
- Typical body temperature
- 304ºK or 30.7ºC or 87.3ºF
- Basal metabolic rate
- 2.3270 W
- Body mass
- 2909.0 g
- Metabolic rate per body mass
- 0.000800 W/g
References
- [1136] Gomes et al. (2011), Comparative biology of mammalian telomeres: hypotheses on ancestral states and the roles of telomeres in longevity determination (PubMed)
- [0978] Jones et al. (2009), PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals
- [0845] Hulbert et al. (2008), The exceptional longevity of an egg-laying mammal, the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is associated with peroxidation-resistant membrane composition (PubMed)
- [0835] Michael Augee et al. (2006), Echidna: Extraordinary Egg-Laying Mammal
- [0671] Richard Weigl (2005), Longevity of Mammals in Captivity; from the Living Collections of the World
- [0036] Savage et al. (2004), The predominance of quarter-power scaling in biology
- [0420] White and Seymour (2003), Mammalian basal metabolic rate is proportional to body mass2/3 (PubMed)
- [0730] Smith et al. (2003), Body mass of late Quaternary mammals
- [0434] Ronald Nowak (1999), Walker's Mammals of the World
- [0455] Virginia Hayssen et al. (1993), Asdell's Patterns of Mammalian Reproduction: A Compendium of Species-Specific Data
- [0731] Zullinger et al. (1984), Fitting sigmoid equations to mammalian growth curves
External Resources
- Integrated Taxonomic Information System
- ITIS 552522
- Animal Diversity Web
- ADW account
- Encyclopaedia of Life
- Search EOL
- NCBI Taxonomy
- Taxonomy ID 9261
- Entrez
- Search all databases
- Ageing Literature
- Search Google Scholar or Search PubMed
- Images
- Google Image search
- Internet
- Search Google