Your correspondent, oh joy, has managed to see an echidna. That’s another crossed off the ever-lengthening bucket list.

The echidna or spiny anteater Tachyglossus aculeatus  is a monotreme like the platypus – a mammal that lays eggs. The monotremes share a common ancestor with the rest of us mammals and were once abundant in the world, but were outcompeted when marsupial and then placental mammals evolved. So they went extinct everywhere except Australia and New Guinea where a handful of species survive due to their extreme specialisation with which other mammals have not successfully competed. The platypus has its extraordinary bill and electrosensory organ, while the echidna has evolved from a platypus-like ancestor to eat nothing but ants and termites – a sensible strategy here; Australia could be renamed Land of Ants. It’s actually quite common, but rarely seen. Here is one, the short-beaked echidna, hiding rolled up for all the world like a hedgehog (they’re about the same size) having sensibly taken fright at my approach: