Echidna

[guppiecat]

The echidna is one of the animals that has been on my short list of critters to get good photographs of (along with pangolins and platypusesisi*). This is not a good photo, because of the gloves, but it’s the best I’ve been able to get because, even if you are lucky enough to find a zoo that has one, these little guys are almost always asleep. Still, you can see eyes, nose, spines, and paws**, so it’s an OK shot, I guess.

* I don’t know the plural of “platypus” and am too tired to look it up.

** Hands? Feet?

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Comments

[yarram.livejournal.com]

Etymologically, the plural should be platypodes¹. But I'm fine with the use of paradigm leveling to derive either "platypus" or "platypuses" for the plural form.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%8D%CF%82

[pameladean]

The gloves give the strong impression that the echidna is wearing a striped onesie. Since that would probably not work so well with spines, I'm glad to be disabused of this notion.

P.