
Just when you thought echidna puggles couldn't get any cuter one shown being cared for at Taronga Zoo in Sydney has upped the charm factor.

A Taronga Zoo Wildlife Hospital Supervisor said it was only around 30 days old when it was brought in. Tiny, bald and has no spines, the puggle was found on a walking track at Anna Bay in the Hunter Region of New South Wales and taken to Taronga Zoo.

‘It’s quite possible it fell out of it’s Mum’s pouch. It still would have been in Mum’s pouch at that time. When they get a bit older – 10 to 15 days older – they are left in a burrow,' the Taronga Zoo Wildlife Hospital Supervisor explained in a zoo video.

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Eating out of the palm of your hand: The little echidna puggle tucks into some milk for its lunch

A Taronga Zoo Wildlife Hospital Supervisor takes the puggle out of an esky where it can be kept at the right temperature

Snack time: A few drops of milk from a syringe is all the puggle needs to fill its stomach

Bath time: The Wildlife Hospital Supervisor at Toronga Zoo cleans the tiny puggle

‘Mum only comes back then every few days to feed the puggle. At the moment I only have to feed this one every two days.’

The puggle just sucked milk out of the palm of the Wildlife Hospital Supervisor’s hand as the mother echida does not have any teats only milk patches which the baby puggle drinks from.

‘At the moment I’m keeping it in a small esky just to keep it at the right temperature. They actually have a very low temperature of 25-27 degrees. The esky is really good at keeping that constant temperature,’ the Wildlife Hospital Supervisor said.

The puggle is bathed and cleaned daily. At this age it is tiny, bald and has no spines

At the moment the small puggle only has to be fed every two days at the most

It’ll take a few months before it will look like an echidna. They normally don’t come out of the burrow for six to sevens months.

‘It still needs a lot of tender loving care for the next few months yet,’ she said.

Being monotremes, echidnas produce young from eggs which are hatched outside their body, in the same way as birds and most reptiles.

Young echidnas are often not fully weaned until they are at least several months old

Although they begin to eat termites and ants soon after leaving the pouch, young echidnas are often not fully weaned until they are several months old.

Echidnas evolved between 20 and 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like creatures. This ancestor was aquatic, but echidnas adapted to life on land.