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The short-beaked echidna is one of four living species of echidna. It is covered in fur and spines, has a distinctive snout to help detect its surroundings, and uses a specialized tongue to catch insects. Its extremely strong front limbs and claws allow it to burrow quickly. It repels predators by curling into a ball and deters them with its spines. During the Australian winter, it goes into deep torpor and hibernation. As the temperature increases, it emerges to mate. Female echidnas lay one egg a year and the mating period is the only time the solitary animals meet. A newborn echidna grows rapidly on mother's milk and is expelled into the mother's burrow when it grows too large for the pouch. It leaves the burrow when it is around six months old. The species is found throughout Australia and in coastal and highland regions of eastern New Guinea. It is not threatened with extinction, but human activities have reduced its distribution in Australia. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Tomb of Sixtus IV by Antonio del Pollaiuolo

... that the only papal tombs to survive the demolition of Old St Peter's and be reconstructed in the present St Peter's Basilica are the two by Antonio del Pollaiuolo (one pictured)?
... that after the Wolverines released their "Moose" for his fifth season, he went on to win another Big Ten championship with the Hoosiers?
... that Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations features the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, the Kingdom of Lovely, and the Grand Duchy of Westarctica?
... that Salvador Ondo Nkumu read out the sentences of mercenaries involved in the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d'état attempt?
... that Hong Kong police claimed to have safely blown up 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb) of TATP on a factory rooftop, even though 280 grams (0.6 lbs) is enough to blow up an airplane?
... that Urwa ibn al-Zubayr has been called the founder of Islamic historiography?
... that fashion psychology is an interdisciplinary field that studies the interaction between human behavior, psychology, and fashion?
... that in 1953, zookeepers accused Penelope the platypus at the Bronx Zoo of "posing as an expectant mother just to lead a life of luxury on double rations"?

In the news

Rodri

In association football, Manchester City defeat Inter Milan to win the UEFA Champions League final (man of the match Rodri pictured).
Former US president Donald Trump is indicted after a special counsel investigation charges him with mishandling classified documents.
Wildfires in Canada cause evacuations and hazardous air conditions across parts of North America.
In golf, the PGA Tour, PGA European Tour and LIV Golf agree to a merger, ending their pending litigation.
In Ukraine, the Kakhovka Dam is breached, causing flooding and prompting mass evacuations.

On this day

June 11

Catherine of Aragon

806 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The Abbasid army departed Raqqa in northern Syria to begin an invasion of Byzantine-controlled Asia Minor.
1509 – Catherine of Aragon (pictured) married King Henry VIII of England, becoming the first of his six wives.
1923 – Kitosh, an African labourer, died after having been flogged by his British employer, in a case that eventually led to reform of the legal system of the Kenya Colony.
1963 – Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.
2008 – Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation.

Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy (d. 1253)
Julia Margaret Cameron (b. 1815)
Gene Wilder (b. 1933)
Sandra Schmirler (b. 1963)

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Today's featured picture

The 1974 aluminum cent was a one-cent coin proposed by the United States Mint in 1973. Composed of an alloy of aluminum and trace metals, it was intended to replace the predominantly copper–zinc cent due to the rising costs of coin production in the traditional bronze alloy. None of the 1,571,167 coins struck were released into circulation. The coin depicted here was donated to the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

Coin design credit: Victor David Brenner and Frank Gasparro; imaged by the National Numismatic Collection

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