While I imagine plans for the next year of DLC are fairly set in stone at this point, ever since the Tasmanian devil was released I've wanted to make a thread vouching for my new most wanted animal, the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus). This thread is mainly meant to serve as a collection point for the various arguments I've made for the inclusion of echidnas over the years, and just an excuse to post a bunch about echidnas because when is that not a good thing?
1) One of the most unique animals on earth
So platypus are pretty famous for their weirdness, but echidnas evolved from an aquatic, platypus-like ancestor, and so essentially have all of the unusual features of the platypus with some extra ones tagged on for good measure. They lay leathery eggs, have electroreceptive beaks, backwards-facing hind feet, no pinnae (the sticky-outy bit of the ears), no teeth, a tongue half the length of their body, walk with a waddle, can live to 50 years, lift objects twice their weight and have the largest prefrontal cortex relative to body size of any mammal (that's the part of the brain associated with reasoning and strategising - obviously useful for planning world domination). Females develop a seasonal pouch to hold their eggs and puggles, and the males have their own special reproductive feature (if you know you know). Despite a superficial resemblance to hedgehogs and porcupines, there really is nothing else on earth quite like them!
the wretched beasts consume their slop
2) Completing the monotremes
We often talk about "completing" various taxonomic groups on this forum, and adding the short-beaked echidna would easily put a nice little bow on one of the smallest but most remarkable of all mammal groups, the monotremes. Of course, no group is ever truly complete unless every single species is added, but when talking in regards to relevance for zoos, all three long-beaked echidna species unfortunately score extremely low - the eastern long-beaked echidna is represented in captivity by a single geriatric individual at Taronga Zoo (godspeed J.R., he's over 50 years old now), the western longbeak was kept at Batu Secret Zoo in Indonesia up until a year or so ago but now not kept anywhere, and the Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is so rare and elusive that it was only confirmed to still exist late last year (hooray!!!). Needless to say, the short-beaked echidna and platypus are more than sufficient for adequately representing the monotremes in a zoo game.
Why complete the monotremes though? Because they're wonderful, that's why, and a great deal more interesting than just more cats and bears (my lawyer requires me to say that this is a joke). The echidna would also provide a monotreme species that's more widely kept internationally as an extra bonus.
3) An all-terrain machine
Oceania as a whole may have achieved reasonable representation after all these years, but once you look at things from a sub-regional level, it becomes apparent that the majority of the region is still very lacking. Outside of temperate south-eastern Australia, which is represented satisfactorily for now, all other regions still have a species list too small to build any kind of reasonable zoo area out of. But you know what single species would be the greatest contribution to regional representation in Oceania? Our spiny egg-laying friend of course.
The short-beaked echidna is Oceania's most widespread and adaptable native mammal, occurring in every terrestrial habitat on mainland Australia as well as all of Tasmania, parts of New Guinea and several smaller islands. Whether desert, rainforest, alpine highlands or just the local block of bushland, echidnas have the continent licked. Therefore, it would be useful in the vast majority of circumstances when building for Oceanian animals.
Want an outback area? Echidna
A section themed around the Australian Alps? Echidna
Tasmanian bushland? Echidna
New Guinea rainforests? Echidna
New Zealand? Well, maybe not echidna, but there is this weird brown orb thing there that's close enough anyway. Honorary echidna
4) Friend to all
In addition to its extreme regional/biome versatility, the short-beaked echidna is also very flexible in regards to how they're held in zoos. They can be kept both indoors and outdoors, in nocturnal or diurnal habitats, and can even be kept in walkthroughs (I've been to a couple). They are also able to be kept with a large number of other species - I've personally seen them kept with koalas, potoroos, bilbies, bandicoots, hare-wallabies, quokkas and a whole walkthrough aviary full of rainforest birds, and I'm sure there are many other mixes out there. Even with their spiny exterior, their quiet and reserved nature allows them to get along with all kinds of different animals, and their continent-spanning distribution would allow them to share interspecies enrichment with everything from quokkas to red kangaroos and koalas.
A fairly typical echidna enclosure in Australia at the Adelaide Zoo (photos by me), shared with koalas and long-nosed potoroos
5) Generic basic zoo animal
...if you're Australian that is. Internationally of course echidnas aren't very common, but nonetheless they have a decent zoo presence in both North America and Europe, being more widely kept in the EAZA than any Australian mammal currently in PZ aside from the red kangaroo, red-necked wallaby and dingo. Back in Australia though, echidnas are quite possibly the most commonly kept mammal that isn't in the game yet*, and this combined with everything discussed previously as well as the fact they're probably the most iconic missing Australian mammal makes them by far the most needed animal for me personally.
*Don't double check this via Zootierliste yet as the Australian holdings for echidnas are currently extremely underdeveloped. I've been helping out with filling out Zootierliste here and there, and I assume most other people are like me and intimidated by how to classify echidnas in mainland zoos on a subspecific level lol
6) It's in the base game soundtrack
Don't tease us like this Frontier
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcv2EahtVso
7) the animal of all time
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H4dEcgSvyI
So what future packs could the short-beaked echidna appear in? Thankfully, while it's far from a shoe-in to any particular pack, the sheer adaptability of echidnas means there's still a few DLC concepts that they could fit in. Chief among them would be a temperate pack, due to their prominence in the temperate parts of Australia, or a woodlands pack, which could either focus on temperate woodlands (in which case it's just another name for a temperate pack) or branch out and cover woodlands in various different climates (temperate, tropical and arid woodlands - echidnas live in them all). Other possibilities include a small mammal pack, nocturnal pack, shrubland pack, etc etc.
Regardless of their likelihood, I hope I've made a good case for including echidnas here! In the end it is what it is, but it would really warm my heart if echidnas could amble into PZ's roster at some point.
1) One of the most unique animals on earth
So platypus are pretty famous for their weirdness, but echidnas evolved from an aquatic, platypus-like ancestor, and so essentially have all of the unusual features of the platypus with some extra ones tagged on for good measure. They lay leathery eggs, have electroreceptive beaks, backwards-facing hind feet, no pinnae (the sticky-outy bit of the ears), no teeth, a tongue half the length of their body, walk with a waddle, can live to 50 years, lift objects twice their weight and have the largest prefrontal cortex relative to body size of any mammal (that's the part of the brain associated with reasoning and strategising - obviously useful for planning world domination). Females develop a seasonal pouch to hold their eggs and puggles, and the males have their own special reproductive feature (if you know you know). Despite a superficial resemblance to hedgehogs and porcupines, there really is nothing else on earth quite like them!
the wretched beasts consume their slop
2) Completing the monotremes
We often talk about "completing" various taxonomic groups on this forum, and adding the short-beaked echidna would easily put a nice little bow on one of the smallest but most remarkable of all mammal groups, the monotremes. Of course, no group is ever truly complete unless every single species is added, but when talking in regards to relevance for zoos, all three long-beaked echidna species unfortunately score extremely low - the eastern long-beaked echidna is represented in captivity by a single geriatric individual at Taronga Zoo (godspeed J.R., he's over 50 years old now), the western longbeak was kept at Batu Secret Zoo in Indonesia up until a year or so ago but now not kept anywhere, and the Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is so rare and elusive that it was only confirmed to still exist late last year (hooray!!!). Needless to say, the short-beaked echidna and platypus are more than sufficient for adequately representing the monotremes in a zoo game.
Why complete the monotremes though? Because they're wonderful, that's why, and a great deal more interesting than just more cats and bears (my lawyer requires me to say that this is a joke). The echidna would also provide a monotreme species that's more widely kept internationally as an extra bonus.
3) An all-terrain machine
Oceania as a whole may have achieved reasonable representation after all these years, but once you look at things from a sub-regional level, it becomes apparent that the majority of the region is still very lacking. Outside of temperate south-eastern Australia, which is represented satisfactorily for now, all other regions still have a species list too small to build any kind of reasonable zoo area out of. But you know what single species would be the greatest contribution to regional representation in Oceania? Our spiny egg-laying friend of course.
The short-beaked echidna is Oceania's most widespread and adaptable native mammal, occurring in every terrestrial habitat on mainland Australia as well as all of Tasmania, parts of New Guinea and several smaller islands. Whether desert, rainforest, alpine highlands or just the local block of bushland, echidnas have the continent licked. Therefore, it would be useful in the vast majority of circumstances when building for Oceanian animals.
Want an outback area? Echidna
A section themed around the Australian Alps? Echidna
Tasmanian bushland? Echidna
New Guinea rainforests? Echidna
New Zealand? Well, maybe not echidna, but there is this weird brown orb thing there that's close enough anyway. Honorary echidna
4) Friend to all
In addition to its extreme regional/biome versatility, the short-beaked echidna is also very flexible in regards to how they're held in zoos. They can be kept both indoors and outdoors, in nocturnal or diurnal habitats, and can even be kept in walkthroughs (I've been to a couple). They are also able to be kept with a large number of other species - I've personally seen them kept with koalas, potoroos, bilbies, bandicoots, hare-wallabies, quokkas and a whole walkthrough aviary full of rainforest birds, and I'm sure there are many other mixes out there. Even with their spiny exterior, their quiet and reserved nature allows them to get along with all kinds of different animals, and their continent-spanning distribution would allow them to share interspecies enrichment with everything from quokkas to red kangaroos and koalas.
A fairly typical echidna enclosure in Australia at the Adelaide Zoo (photos by me), shared with koalas and long-nosed potoroos
5) Generic basic zoo animal
...if you're Australian that is. Internationally of course echidnas aren't very common, but nonetheless they have a decent zoo presence in both North America and Europe, being more widely kept in the EAZA than any Australian mammal currently in PZ aside from the red kangaroo, red-necked wallaby and dingo. Back in Australia though, echidnas are quite possibly the most commonly kept mammal that isn't in the game yet*, and this combined with everything discussed previously as well as the fact they're probably the most iconic missing Australian mammal makes them by far the most needed animal for me personally.
*Don't double check this via Zootierliste yet as the Australian holdings for echidnas are currently extremely underdeveloped. I've been helping out with filling out Zootierliste here and there, and I assume most other people are like me and intimidated by how to classify echidnas in mainland zoos on a subspecific level lol
6) It's in the base game soundtrack
Don't tease us like this Frontier
7) the animal of all time
So what future packs could the short-beaked echidna appear in? Thankfully, while it's far from a shoe-in to any particular pack, the sheer adaptability of echidnas means there's still a few DLC concepts that they could fit in. Chief among them would be a temperate pack, due to their prominence in the temperate parts of Australia, or a woodlands pack, which could either focus on temperate woodlands (in which case it's just another name for a temperate pack) or branch out and cover woodlands in various different climates (temperate, tropical and arid woodlands - echidnas live in them all). Other possibilities include a small mammal pack, nocturnal pack, shrubland pack, etc etc.
Regardless of their likelihood, I hope I've made a good case for including echidnas here! In the end it is what it is, but it would really warm my heart if echidnas could amble into PZ's roster at some point.
