Talking about Echidnas

There are five extant monotreme species, the platypus and the four species of echidnas. The Short-beaked echidna is found in Australia and New Guinea and the three long-beaked echidna species in New Guinea i.e., the Eastern long-beaked echidna, the Western long-beaked echidna and Sir David's long-beaked echidna, named after David Attenborough. The echidnas differ in snout length, diet and habitat. Unlike other mammals, female monotremes lay eggs rather than bearing live young. Like other mammals female monotremes nurse their young with milk.

Dr. Kate Dutton-Regester and Victor the Echidna

Dr Kate Dutton-Regester is a wildlife scientist specialising in wildlife ecology and conservation, veterinary epidemiology and invasive species ecology.

Kate is an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science and collaborates closely with Wildlife Queensland and manages their EchidnaWatch platform.

She leads the Echidna Conservation: Building a Baseline program, which addresses long-standing data gaps for the short-beaked echidna.

This program is generating the first regional-scale ecological dataset for echidnas in Southeast Queensland.

The initiative involves collaboration with over 10 local councils and community groups and comprises camera trapping, community-led field monitoring and eDNA pilot studies.