Egg-laying Echidna Could Not Have Evolved | The Institute for Creation Research

Egg-laying Echidna Could Not Have Evolved

A research intern for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Muse Opiang, completed the first field study ever conducted on the long-beaked echidna, an egg-laying mammal found only in New Guinea.1 Representing four years and 6,000 man-hours of work, Opiang’s field observations include a catalog of dwellings and habits that befit an animal clearly formed with a collection of mosaic features, characteristics shared by various creatures that have been unified into a functional whole.

The study required remarkable effort because echidnas are active only at night and stay mostly underground. The tracked echidnas each ranged through a territory of about 96 acres, and their diet included insects and worms. Echidna dens were found mostly in dense thickets or underground. These details are of particular interest to conservationists developing programs to protect the endangered creatures.

The adult Eastern Long-beaked Echidna possesses a slender, pointed snout used to poke holes in the ground to search for subterranean meals. The echidna has very effective digging claws, and has coarse hair and spines similar to an anteater’s. However, it lays eggs like most reptiles, and has a reptile-like “sprawling gait” and a single opening that releases both waste and gametes. The features in monotremes, a category that includes both echidnas and platypuses, have “forced zoologists to change their very definitions of what a mammal is.”2

There is no clear evolutionary explanation for the development of the echidna kind. There are Miocene fossils of echidnas, which creation scientists attribute to post-Flood local floods, but “the oldest monotreme fossils show little difference from today's animals, so there is no fossil record to indicate they have evolved from any other type of creature.”3 Nor is there a clear connection between the echidna and the platypus, which both lay eggs but are otherwise very different animals.

The strange combination of mammalian and reptilian features may defy a Darwinian description of origins, but they fit perfectly with a Creator who is able to shape living forms with whatever features He wants them to have. All indications point to echidnas being uniquely created to live as underground nocturnal creatures and to reproduce only more echidnas. Hopefully, the fruits of this groundbreaking and painstakingly-obtained research will help ensure that echidnas continue to thrive, since they are such marvelous manifestations from the mind of their Maker.

References

  1. Opiang, M. D. 2009. Home Ranges, Movement, and Den Use in Long-Beaked Echidnas, Zaglossus Bartoni, from Papua New Guinea. Journal of Mammalogy. 90 (2): 340-346.
  2. WCS Supports World's First Study of Odd-Ball, Egg-Laying Mammal. Wildlife Conservation Society press release, June 9, 2009.
  3. Doolan, R. 1996. The echidna enigma...and the platypus puzzle. Creation. 18 (2): 26-27.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on June 23, 2009.

The Latest
NEWS
55-Million-Year-Old Tree Frog…Is Still a Tree Frog
In the 1990s, Australian paleontologists discovered fossil frog bones during a dig in Murgon, Queensland.1 This new species of frog—Litoria...

NEWS
Pastor and Longtime ICR Supporter Dr. John MacArthur Now with...
Faithful ICR supporter and pastor Dr. John MacArthur went home to be with the Lord on Monday, July 14, 2025, completing his 86-year pilgrimage.1...

CREATION PODCAST
Setting Sights on Scopes: The Truth Behind the Infamous Monkey...
The Scopes Trial is one of the most famous court cases in American history, and this year marks its one hundredth anniversary. Often,...

NEWS
Did Earthworms Rewrite Their DNA to Survive on Land?
An earthworm news story was recently posted that openly questions Darwin’s gradual and slow evolutionary progress in the living world.1...

NEWS
Mysterious Erosion Confirms High Flood Boundary
Two separate research reports arrived at a similar conclusion.1,2 Both found an episode of mysterious erosion had occurred near the end of...

NEWS
A Uniquely Designed Air-Filled Sac Within Birds’ Lungs
Soaring birds are a majestic sight to behold, especially when they undergo such climbing and endless spiraling so effortlessly. Not surprisingly, evolutionists...

NEWS
Liberty and the Word of God
“And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts” (Psalm 119:45). July 4th is called Independence Day here in our country because on...

NEWS
July 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome...

NEWS
Valued Longtime ICR Employee Mary Smith Retires
Mary Morris Smith, an employee of the Institute for Creation Research for many years, has retired. The second daughter of ICR founder Dr. Henry M. Morris...

NEWS
Man of Science, Man of God: George Washington Carver
Who:  George Washington Carver What: Father of Modern Agriculture When: 1864 or 1865 – January 5, 1943 Where: Diamond Grove,...