Long-beaked echidna

Long-beaked echidnas^[1]

Western Long-beaked Echidna (Zaglossus bruijni)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Monotremata
Family:	Tachyglossidae
Genus:	Zaglossus Gill, 1877
Type species
Tachyglossus bruijni Peters and Doria, 1876
Species
Zaglossus attenboroughi Zaglossus bartoni Zaglossus bruijni †Zaglossus hacketti †Zaglossus robustus

The long-beaked echidnas make up one of the two genera (genus Zaglossus) of echidnas, spiny monotremes that lives in New Guinea. There are three living species and two extinct species in this genus. Echidnas are one of the two types of mammals that lay eggs.

1 Species
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

Species

Zaglossus attenboroughi

Main article: Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna

Habitat: regions of New Guinea at higher elevation than highland forests
Era: the present
Endangered

Zaglossus bartoni

Main article: Eastern Long-beaked Echidna

Habitat: on the central cordillera between the Paniai Lakes and the Nanneau Range, as well as the Huon Peninsula
Era: the present
Endangered

Zaglossus bruijni

Main article: Western Long-beaked Echidna

Habitat: highland forests of New Guinea
Era: the present
Endangered

†Zaglossus hacketti

Main article: Zaglossus hacketti

Habitat: Western Australia
Era: Upper Pleistocene
Fossil
This species is known only from a few bones. At a metre long, it was huge for an echidna and for monotremes in general.

†Zaglossus robustus

Main article: Zaglossus robustus

Habitat: Tasmania
Era: Pleistocene
Fossil
This species is known from a fossil skull about 65 cm long.
It had many spikes along its back to protect it from its predators and used them as a weapon.

References

^ Groves, Colin P. (16 November 2005). "Order Monotremata (pp. 1-2)". In Wilson, Don E., and Reeder, DeeAnn M., eds. Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols. (2142 pp.). pp. 1-2. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=10300010.

Flannery, T.F. and Groves, C.P. 1998. A revision of the genus Zaglossus (Monotremata, Tachyglossidae), with description of new species and subspecies. Mammalia, 62(3): 367–396

External links

EDGE of Existence (Zaglossus spp.) – Saving the World's most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species
ARKive – images and movies of the long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus spp.)
A summary, including references, on animalinfo.org

Extant Monotremata species by family

Kingdom Animalia · Phylum Chordata · Class Mammalia · (unranked) Australosphenida

Tachyglossidae
(Echidnas)

Tachyglossus	Short-beaked Echidna (T. aculeatus)

Zaglossus (Long-beaked echidnas)	Sir David's Long-beaked Echidna (Z. attenboroughi) · Eastern Long-beaked Echidna (Z. bartoni) · Western Long-beaked Echidna (Z. bruijni)

Ornithorhynchidae

Ornithorhynchus	Platypus (O. anatinus)

Category