3/2/2024 0 Comments Platypus baby really fatThe only thing we could find was an honours thesis from 50 years ago which mentions this sound, but the study was never published.”Īstonishingly, it was to be another 15 years before Cooper heard the sounds again. “We went back through the literature and there was no reference to them vocalising. ![]() Smell is their major form of communication. The reason for her incredulity is that echidnas weren’t supposed to talk. “To be honest, if I’d been there by myself I’d probably have thought I was imagining it!” “We just sort of looked at each other and went, ‘Did you hear that? Was that the echidna?’” she remembers. One day, more than a decade ago, while working with a PhD student at their main echidna field site in the Dryandra National Park near Narrogin, 200km south west of the capital, Perth, they heard a weird sound. But to me it sounds like a dove cooing.”Ĭooper is based at Curtin University’s School of Molecular and Life Sciences in Western Australia. I have heard some members of the public who’ve contacted me since the paper was released describe it as a purring sound. “Quite soft – that might be why it hasn’t been recorded before. ![]() Her research not only proves that echidnas can vocalise, given that the sounds have only been heard in breeding season, it raises the question is this the echidnas’ secret love language? Dr Christine Cooper and her team have just released the first published recordings of echidnas “talking”. H ow do echidnas make love? Carefully… of course! No truly – that’s a direct quote from the scientist behind the latest discovery about Australia’s favourite spiky mammal’s love life.
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