The Enigmatic Echidna | Danielle Clode in Conversation
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About
There are few animals more unusual than the echidna – a spiky, egg-laying mammal that eats ants. But some of the most striking things about echidnas are things most of us don't know. That they use their snout like a snorkel when they swim, that they can sense electromagnetic fields, that they have intriguingly complex brains, startling physical strength and 'backwards' back feet. That they go into torpor when conditions are poor and can survive fires by sheltering underground. And that during the mating season, male echidnas will line up behind a female, making cooing noises and forming an orderly echidna train, waiting for their chance to impress her with some very strange reproductive equipment!
In The Enigmatic Echidna, biologist and award-winning author Danielle Clode follows the echidna on its eclectic path through the Australian landscape. Equal parts surprising, amusing and enlightening, it is an irresistible journey into their unique and beautiful world.
Danielle Clode is a biologist and natural history author. Her books include Koala, winner of the 2023 Whitley Award for Popular Ecology; Killers in Eden, which was made into an award-winning ABC TV documentary; Voyage to the South Seas, winner of the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-fiction; In Search of the Woman Who Sailed the World; and The Wasp and the Orchid, which was shortlisted for National Biography Award.
Danielle will be in conversation with Geordie Williamson. Geordie has been chief literary critic of The Australian since 2008. He is publisher of the Picador imprint at Pan Macmillan, a former editor of Island Magazine and Best Australian Essays, and author of The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature. He lives in Hobart.
Join Danielle and Geordie at the Afterword Cafe.