#animal #wild #nature

Meet Australia's short-beaked echidna. Until recently, this monotreme, or egg-laying mammal, was only thought to eat insects. That was until a Sikhi University researcher confirmed the sneaky predator had been dipping his beak, quite literally, into the eggs of some of Australia's The cracking discovery by Sikhi University researcher Kimberley Robinson revealed two threatened bum-breeding species, the white-throated snapping turtle and the Fitzroy river turtle, were facing grave futures due to high nest depredation. But it's the Fitzroy river turtle who has been hit the hardest by the predator. And one of the interesting discoveries we've made is that echidnas are actually depredating on not just the Fitzroy river turtle eggs, but the white-throated snapping turtle eggs as well, which are both threatened species. So yeah, very interesting. So the echidna has always been, I guess, thought of being insectivorous, so only preying on things like ants and termites. So this is the first time it's actually been, I guess, recorded and published that they eat something different to that. In the zoological industry, they actually feed echidnas egg in a slurry. So to some people, it hasn't really been a surprise, but some of the other people that have been studying echidnas for a long time, it was, yeah, very unsuspecting predator. Kimberley says the vulnerability of the Fitzroy river turtle eggs may be due to the egg chambers being shallower than other species. So we found that, interestingly enough, the echidna's beak probing in the substrate was a similar depth to the top egg of the Fitzroy river turtle. We also found the echidnas were more active during the spring time when the Fitzroy river turtle is nesting, rather than the winter time when the white-throated snapping turtle was nesting. So we're unsure if the depredation is higher for that species because of the actual beak depth and the top egg measurement, we're unsure, but yeah, it's very similar, very interesting. Most predators are easy to identify. So if you have a fox, a pig, or anything like that, they tend to dig the chamber out and chew on the eggs and leave the eggshells sort of scattered on the ground. Whereas the echidna were coming across this, these nests that were depredated, but all the eggs were sort of contained in the chamber and they just had one single puncture hole in them. So it was quite unusual in the beginning, because I was just like, you know, what animal is able to actually eat the contents of the eggs without removing them? Kimberley's monitoring of Fitzroy river turtle nests has shown a dramatic increase in echidna activity of nest depredation from 2.8% in 2018 to 47.4% in 2022. With such a jump in destroyed nests, you may wonder if this is a natural occurrence, or is it human interference at play? Or could it simply be that the echidnas have developed a taste of the eggs? Researchers may not have the answers quite yet, but one thing is for sure, the Fitzroy river turtle is worth protecting. So the Fitzroy river turtle is listed as vulnerable, both federally and state. So it means they're in a little bit of trouble or a little bit concerned that into the future, the species may totally disappear. So they're pretty special turtle, they're only found in the Fitzroy catchment. So that's the only place they're found in the whole entire world. And they're the only living species of their genus. So yeah, very special little guys. Studying turtle nesting ecology is not for the faint hearted. It requires a person who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty at all times of the day and night, and who has a deep respect for the dangers that lurk in Australian tropical waterways. And Kimberly is no stranger to the turtles and the Fitzroy river system. After all, it's been her backyard since she was a child. Yeah, sort of fell into I guess working with freshwater turtles. I've always been a big animal lover. And when I was 16, I was given the opportunity to go and join a group that was going out doing nest protection for the Fitzroy river turtle. And I guess I was sort of hooked after I went out on my first time. So now I've been doing that kind of work for 17 years. And it sort of led me to become pretty passionate about the species and now I'm studying them. Kimberly hopes her study findings will help get more turtles back into the water.