"IF YOU CHOPPED two of its legs off and saw it on a dark night you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a kiwi," says Morris of the long-nosed echidna (Zaglossus bruijni), a primitive monotreme mammal from the mountains of New Guinea. The echidna also resembles the kiwi in being nocturnal, burrow-dwelling, an exclusive earthworm eater, and having a long snout with nostrils at the tip and small poorly-sighted eyes. The kiwi has taken on many mammalian characters: hair-like feathers, whiskers, equivalent body temperature, and comparable size and development of embryos. "Evolution on islands can be carried to such bizarre extremes," says Morris, "that primitive mammals and primitive birds can look more like each other than most other mammals and birds"

Forest and Bird, Issue 268, 1 May 1993, Page 12

"IF YOU CHOPPED two of its legs off and saw it on a dark night you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a kiwi," says Morris of the long-nosed echidna (Zaglossus bruijni), a primitive monotreme mammal from the mountains of New Guinea. The echidna also resembles the kiwi in being nocturnal, burrow-dwelling, an exclusive earthworm eater, and having a long snout with nostrils at the tip and small poorly-sighted eyes. The kiwi has taken on many mammalian characters: hair-like feathers, whiskers, equivalent body temperature, and comparable size and development of embryos. "Evolution on islands can be carried to such bizarre extremes," says Morris, "that primitive mammals and primitive birds can look more like each other than most other mammals and birds"