Dryandra Woodland National Park field recordings shed light on the secret life of the short-beaked echidna

A Curtin University research team has released a recording of wild short-beaked echidnas taken in Dryandra Woodland National Park that suggest the egg-laying mammals may speak a language of love. Dryandra, 30km north-west of Narrogin in the Shire of Cuballing, is home to many of WA’s unique native animals including the numbat. The recordings of grunts and coos support the theory that like other mammals echidnas can communicate through vocalisation. Senior lecturer with Curtin’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences Dr Christine Cooper said that the rare sounds were captured using handheld microphones and a camera and microphone left at the entrance to a cave “popular with echidnas”. “We observed wild short-beaked echidnas at Dryandra National Park making cooing and grunting sounds in addition to the wheezing and exhalation noises that the animals are known to make,” she said. “Careful analysis of those cooing and grunting sounds showed echidnas are capable of vocalising, aligning them with most other mammals in their use of acoustic communication. “The echidnas made the sounds when they were alone or with another echidna, however, these sounds were made only rarely, and all the vocalisations recorded occurred exclusively during the breeding season.” Dr Cooper said that while what was being communicated may not be clear, the context in which the unique sounds were made might hint at a romantic motivation. “Although we don’t know the purpose or understand the meaning of the short-beaked echidna’s grunting and cooing, we have only heard them from adult animals during the breeding season suggesting echidnas only find their voice when reproductively active,” she said. The recordings also provide a valuable insight into the evolutionary past of the creature. “If both monotremes and other mammals vocalise this suggests that the common ancestor of these two evolutionary lineages could also vocalise,” Dr Cooper said. “While other forms of communication such as vibrational and chemical signals are known to have appeared much earlier, our findings confirm that acoustic communication using sound likely developed 100 to 200 million years ago — before monotremes diverged from other mammals.” Previously, research undertaken by Dr Cooper published in the Biology Letters journal on January 18 revealed that the curious wild short-beaked echidna blows snot bubbles to help regulate body heat. “They blow mucus bubbles out of their nose and they burst and wet the tip of their snout,” she said. “That means evaporation can cool the big pool of blood that’s just under the skin at the tip of their nose.”