Echidnas, also called spiny anteaters, are walking contradictions. They are mammals, but they lay eggs. ... Echidnas are monotremes, egg-laying mammals. The only other living monotreme is the platypus.

Do ant eaters lay eggs?

The female anteater lays usually one leathery-shelled egg directly into the pouch on her belly. The egg hatches after only ten or eleven days. The newborn baby is tiny, about the size of a dime. After the baby hatches, it stays in the pouch for several weeks and continues to develop.

Is anteater a mammal lay eggs?

Only two kinds of egg-laying mammals are left on the planet today—the duck-billed platypus and the echidna, or spiny anteater. These odd “monotremes” once dominated Australia, until their pouch-bearing cousins, the marsupials, invaded the land down under 71 million to 54 million years ago and swept them away.