This teeny-tiny rescued echidna is not the first baby animal to captivate us with its cuteness (and it certainly won't be the last), but it's going to be hard to find more adorable dining habits.
The echidna puggle (because that, joyfully, is what baby echidnas are called) is settling in at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia after a lucky rescue from a building site late last year when its nursery burrow was accidentally dug up by a bulldozer. The puggle sustained a very nasty gash to its side, but the wound has since healed perfectly, according to its carer. The youngster has since named "Newman", after Seinfeld's beady-eyed neighbour from down the hall.
Newman’s recovery required weeks of antibiotics, and the tiny monotreme had to be hand-reared (it even got its own artificial temperature-controlled 'burrow hotel'!).
One of only two mammals that lay eggs, echidnas are also distinctive due to their lack of nipples – echidna females excrete milk from ‘patches’ on their abdomens for their offspring to lap up. This means that Newman's carer Samantha Elton needs to feed it by gently squirting milk into the palm of her hand, and then allowing the little spiny anteater to suck it up with its long snout.
This feeding ritual took quite some time to perfect, and early in its recovery, Newman wasn’t too keen on it. “The feeding process was very stop-start at first, but now the puggle is like a little Hoover. It will drink constantly for about 40 minutes, only stopping to blow milk out its nose,” explains Samantha. Which makes for your perfect daily dose of 'awww'.
And all this puggle pampering has paid off. Newman has doubled in size since February, and although still too small to be left on its own (or even for keepers to determine its sex), the youngster is making great progress. Once old and big enough, Newman will be placed with a group of echidnas at Taronga’s Education Centre to take up the role of species ambassador and help raise awareness for habitat conservation.
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