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Conservationists are celebrating echidna “twins” born in San Diego. Known as puggles, the babies hatched earlier this year to one mother during the same breeding season—an extremely rare occurrence, according to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
Echidnas are egg-laying mammals, or monotremes, that live on the continent of Australia and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. Sometimes called “spiny anteaters,” they are covered in beige-and-black spines that help them blend in with their surroundings.
Echidnas have small eyes and poor vision, but they make up for it with keen senses of smell and hearing. The creatures have long, rubbery snouts called beaks, which they use to sniff out termites, earthworms, ants and other tasty critters. Their stubby but powerful legs and sharp claws also make them excellent diggers, allowing them to burrow into the ground and quickly disappear from approaching predators.
During the breeding season, a female typically lays just one egg—a small, leathery orb about the size of a grape. She incubates the egg in a deep pouch on her belly for about ten days, until a bald, jellybean-size puggle that weighs about half as much as a mini marshmallow emerges.
“Unlike a marsupial pouch, an echidna has a temporary ‘pseudo-pouch’ that is only present when they are incubating an egg and raising a puggle,” Jennifer LeBeau, lead wildlife care specialist for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, tells Popular Science’s Margherita Bassi.
Puggles typically stay in their mothers’ pouches for roughly two months, lapping up milk secreted from special glands. Once the baby outgrows its mother’s pouch, she places the youngster inside an underground nursery burrow that she previously prepared and covers the entrance with dirt. She returns every few days to feed the puggle, digging out and then re-covering the entrance each time.
Eventually, she stops backfilling the burrow—a signal to the puggle that it’s time to head outside and start exploring. Puggles continue nursing once they leave their burrows, but they also start to incorporate other foods, like insects, into their diet.
Earlier this year, caretakers at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park were surprised to find two puggles in the pouch of a short-beaked echidna named Kathryn. She’s raising one of the puggles in a burrow as expected. But when the other baby’s weight plateaued, veterinarians at the zoo’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center decided to hand-raise it.
That puggle is enjoying lots of care and attention, including check-ins by veterinarians once a day and wildlife care specialists at least twice a day. “Hand-rearing puggles from this age tends to have a lower success rate, so we will continue to closely monitor and intervene as needed should any further challenges arise,” Anthony Cerreta, a clinical veterinarian with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, tells Popular Science.
Recently, veterinarians began using ultrasound to monitor the hand-raised puggle’s stomach, an “unexpected breakthrough,” according to the zoo. The images revealed how quickly the youngster was digesting its formula, helping the team fine-tune its feeding schedule.
“They’re unlike any other species,” according to the zoo. “The more we know about them, the better we’re able to save, protect and care for them.”
Short-beaked echidnas are considered a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which guides global conservation measures. However, their long-beaked cousins are facing mounting threats to their survival. Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named after famed British broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough, and the western long-beaked echidna are both listed as critically endangered. The eastern long-beaked echidna, meanwhile, is vulnerable.
This article was originally published on Smithsonian Magazine. Read the full story here: Double Puggles: See the Adorable 'Twin' Echidnas Born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park © 2026 Smithsonian Institution.
