In the pelvis the acetabulum is perforate (in echidna), as in Sauropsida.
Man-serpent, therefore, in Dante, as echidna is woman-serpent.
The pterygoids are smaller than in echidna, and the hard palate does not extend so far back as in that genus.
In Ornithorhynchus the zygomatic arch is much stouter than in echidna.
The echidna is covered with strong, dense spines, and has a long and slender snout.
In echidna the carpus is broad, the scaphoid and lunar are united and there is no centrale.
Dr. Klaatsch thinks that these smaller and included pouches are the equivalents of the mammary pouches of echidna.
The echidna of Australia is sometimes called porcupine ant-eater.
The vast brood of echidna in mythology expresses the brood of evil in nature.
The non-placentals include only the marsupials and the monotremes (ornithorhyncus and echidna).
Australian egg-laying hedgehog-like mammal, 1847, usually explained as from Greek ekhidna "snake, viper," from ekhis "snake," from PIE *angwhi- "snake, eel" (cf. Norwegian igle, Old High German egala, German Egel "leech," Latin anguis "serpent, snake").
But this sense is difficult to reconcile with this animal (unless it is a reference to the ant-eating tongue), and the name seems more properly to belong to Latin echinus, Greek ekhinos "sea-urchin," originally "hedgehog" (in Greek also "sharp points"), which Watkins explains as "snake-eater," from ekhis "snake."
