Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogebam here a. While be a
Speaker 1: kidnap is considered a mammal because it's warm blooded, has
Speaker 1: hair on its body, and produces milk for its young.
Speaker 1: This large hedgehog like creature is in a class of
Speaker 1: its own or very nearly. Kitnas are monotreames that means
Speaker 1: they're mammals that lay eggs. For that reason, they're named
Speaker 1: after mythological monsters. In Greek mythology, Kitna was a half woman,
Speaker 1: half snake creature perceived to have qualities of both mammals
Speaker 1: and reptiles. There are only five species of monotreams in
Speaker 1: the world, four species of a chidnas, plus the duck
Speaker 1: billed platypus. The kidnap also has its own distinct look.
Speaker 1: For the article. This episode is based on hows to Work.
Speaker 1: Spoke by email with Rick Schwartz, San Diego Zoo Global Ambassador.
Speaker 1: He said the body of a short peaked to kidna
Speaker 1: has dark fur, almost completely hidden by a covering of hollow,
Speaker 1: barblous quills called spines on its back and sides, while
Speaker 1: long beaked kidneys have little fur and more visible spines.
Speaker 1: The Beiesian black spines on all a kidney species are
Speaker 1: about two inches or five centimeters long and help camouflage
Speaker 1: the kidney in the brush. They have very short legs,
Speaker 1: ideal for digging. Kidneys have a tiny face with small
Speaker 1: eyes and long or short noses, sometimes called beaks. Their
Speaker 1: body is quite stocky, measuring from fifteen to thirty inches
Speaker 1: long that's thirty five to seventy cis and weighing for
Speaker 1: five to twenty pounds that's two to twenty kilos. With
Speaker 1: those spines, they do look a bit like a hedgehog
Speaker 1: or porcupine mixed with an ant eater, but they aren't
Speaker 1: closely related to any of the above. The spines are
Speaker 1: made of caratin, like our pair and fingernails, and are
Speaker 1: a defensive measure against predators. If they can't run or hide,
Speaker 1: they can curl up into a spiny ball. They're found
Speaker 1: throughout Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, from the highlands to
Speaker 1: the deserts to the forests. The kidneys eat ants, grubs,
Speaker 1: and termites, so digging for food is key. Areas with
Speaker 1: loose top soil are ideal, though they can plow through
Speaker 1: hard packed dirt as well, and they also take advantage
Speaker 1: of a very strong sense of smell to locate their
Speaker 1: food underground or beneath wood or leaf litter. And they
Speaker 1: also have a sixth sense that's most often associated with sharks,
Speaker 1: electro reception, a specialized cells in their faces are sensitive
Speaker 1: to the electromagnetic signals that living things make when they
Speaker 1: move around. They're the only land mammals that have this sense. However,
Speaker 1: what they don't have is teeth. Instead, they use their sticky, long,
Speaker 1: slender tongue to catch their food, but they do chew
Speaker 1: in a way. A short said hard pads at the
Speaker 1: base of the tongue and on the roof of its
Speaker 1: mouth grind food into a paste for swallowing. A kid
Speaker 1: This have the lowest body temperature of any mammal, around
Speaker 1: eighty nine point six fahrenheit that's thirty two celsius. Schwartz
Speaker 1: explained their long lifespans up to fifty years and managed
Speaker 1: settings are due to their low body temperature and slow metabolism.
Speaker 1: A kidnap reading season is during July and August winter
Speaker 1: in Australia, and their courtship rituals are complex. Schwartz said
Speaker 1: male a kidnas often line up behind a female nose
Speaker 1: to tail, forming long trains up to ten a kidness long.
Speaker 1: When the female is finally ready to mate, the males
Speaker 1: dig a trench in the ground around her. The males
Speaker 1: compete for mating honors by pushing each other out of
Speaker 1: the trench. The last one remaining gets to mate with
Speaker 1: the female. Female kidnas have a two branched reproductive tract
Speaker 1: and male a kidnas have a four headed penis to match,
Speaker 1: and Schwartz explained during sex, two of the heads shut
Speaker 1: down while the other two grow bigger. A kidnas alternate
Speaker 1: which heads they use when mating with different partners to
Speaker 1: improve their chances of becoming a father. An adult female
Speaker 1: kidna usually lays a single leathery egg once a year.
Speaker 1: Schwartz said. She rolls the newly laid egg, about the
Speaker 1: size of a grape, into a deep pocket or pouch
Speaker 1: on her belly to keep it safe, and ten days later,
Speaker 1: the baby a kidna called a puggle hatches. It weighs
Speaker 1: only about half as much as a miniature marshmallow, and
Speaker 1: the puggle uses its tiny sea through claws to grip
Speaker 1: the special hairs within the mother's pouch. The mother does
Speaker 1: not have nipples the way other mammals do. Instead, the
Speaker 1: little puggle laps at milk that the mother's body secretes
Speaker 1: from special glands in her pouch, he continued. Fortunately for
Speaker 1: the mother, the puggle does not yet have spines sticking out.
Speaker 1: It remains in the pouch until its spines begin to
Speaker 1: break through its skin at about fifty three days. Then
Speaker 1: the mother puts the puggle into a burrow, where she
Speaker 1: returns to feed it every five to ten days until
Speaker 1: it's big enough to go out on its own at
Speaker 1: about seven months old. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article the Kidna is one of the World's Strangest Mammals
Speaker 1: on how stuff Works dot Com, written by Wendy Bowman.
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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang.
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