A LITTLE AUSSIE FIGHTER

Dr Sheridan was saddened by the call out she had last night, a little echidna that had been mistreated by a group of people and was seriously injured. Overnight she gave the little echidna an anti-inflammatory and pain relief injection and stablised her with some fluid therapy under the skin so she could be properly examined under sedation the next day. This morning she was examined under a sedative. Her body was not badly injured, most likely because she curled herself into a little defensive ball. Unfortunately Echidnas have a long snout that is easily damaged. The photos below show the damage done to her beak and are quiet graphic. The tongue was unable to be retracted suggesting nerve damage to the area. She also had injuries to the tip of the upper beak and the lower area of skin had been pulled off the bones of her mandible (lower jaw). We xrayed the area in case we could have done more to save her – unfortunately the upper beak had  fracture running through it – as can be seen with the arrows. The echidnas beak is exetremely important, they use it to dig and eat with but it also had receptors on the end that allows them to find food underground (as there eyes cant!). Because there was so much damage to this area even if we could have reparied the fracture the receptors and nerves in her beak would have remained damage and she would have been unable to feed properly. While it was unfortunate we couldnt save the echidna we were very grateful to the Pizza Delivery Man who called Dr Sheridan and rescued the echidna, as she would have died from infection or starvation in the wild.