Puggle

[den]

The little echidna at the zoo died. One minute it was pink and drinking milk, the next it as grey and dead. The vets there are sad.

Rexie was only 160g when I got her, and H says she's raised them from 90g and 80g. If Zoovets can't raise a 35g puggle it makes me wonder if there is a minimum viable weight for successful echidna raising. Maybe the very small ones are too stressy.

bugger.



Museum Of Australia listing for Greater Long Eared Bat.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[ursulav.livejournal.com]

Aw, damn. Poor little thing.

Well, I don't know puggles like you do, but low birth weight's one of the great indicators of ill-health in human babies, so it wouldn't surprise me if a puggle that tiny just couldn't make it.

Of course, they're monotremes, so they hatch, right? Is it even possible to hatch prematurely?

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

When they hatch they weigh about 1 gram and are about 3/4 inch long. I don't think you can have a premature hatching. They're ready or they're not.

This one was about 1 month old

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. :(

[tatterdemalion.livejournal.com]

awwww

poor puggle

[tygermoonfoxx.livejournal.com]

If there's no record of survival of low weight echidna puggles, I'd say that's a fairly good guess. It makes sense, at any rate. I know that quite a few other creatures aren't viable without mummy below a certain weight or before a certain age.

Still, I'm sorry it died. At least it had good care while it was here.