Echidnas form a love train
It's like the echidna version of The Bachelorette.
~Love is in the air ~
With Valentine’s Day coming up, I thought it would be interesting to touch on some of the interesting aspects of the mating season in animals.
And in this case, it’s echidnas and their love trains.
As we talked about in a previous post about echidna dicks, echidnas are monotremes. Monotremes are mammals that lay eggs and secrete milk from their pore patches (fun fact: monotremes have no nipples).
And when it comes to breeding seasons, male echidnas engage in a behaviour known as a "love train". Male echidnas will travel outside of his home range and court a female, or multiple females. With all these males trying to compete for a female, they end up forming a line behind the female.
It’s thought that by following a female around, the male will trigger the female echidna’s fertility hormones.
When a male initially tries to mate with a female, the female is not actually fertile, so she is not ready to reproduce. However, as she becomes receptive, she chooses her mate. The up to six weeks wait for this fertile period leads to the formation of the echidna love train ranging from two to eleven individuals long.
Some males will stay with the female echidna and follow her around, while others will leave the train and follow another female, or even rotate between different lines. And it’s usually the youngest or smallest echidna trailing at the end of the line.
Gradually over the course of the mating season, the males will drop off one by one. Once the female is ready to mate, she will choose her male partner. And it’s typically the last male standing, which is normally the biggest and most aggressive echidna.
Aka the one that’s able to push all the other male echidnas away.
Honestly, this pretty much sounds like the echidna version of The Bachelorette. All we’re missing is some roses.