Echidna means ‘viper’ in Greek and is the name of the half woman, half serpent mother of all monsters from Greek mythology.
It’s hard to know when people first started talking about Echidna, I’d say she has been around a long time, but the first written records date from Hesiod’s Theogony, around 7th or 8th century BC. He described her as half beautiful woman, and half terrifying serpent. The serpent half seemed to eat flesh, and the woman half was irresistible to men. Altogether she was ageless and undying.
Over the centuries her parentage, appearance, husband and offspring all varied, depending who wrote about her, and she became more hideous in appearance and behavior.
Obviously it’s impossible for a snake woman to exist, but snakes and snake people are an important part of religion and myths worldwide. There are many possible explanations for this. When it comes to Echidna, could she have once been a powerful ruler who was considered both beautiful and deadly? Did people talk about her in riddles, until her venomous bite became a literal snake tail?
There is another famous Echidna, however. The very rare and very cute monotreme from Australia and New Guinea. In case you didn’t know, monotremes are mammals that have beaks and lay eggs. So, they’re warm blooded, have hair, and produce milk (the necessary requirements to be part of the mammal club), but they also have beaks and lay eggs. I’m going to say this again because it is so incredible – they’re mammals that hatch from eggs!
There are only two monotremes in existence today (that we know of!) – the Echidna and the Platypus.
Why is an Australian spiny anteater named after a Greek monster?
French naturalist Baron Georges Cuvier suggested the name because of the properties of both mammals and reptiles present in the monotreme, similar to the Greek monster’s woman/snake physiology. Seems like a stretch to me. Birds are warm blooded, lay eggs and have beaks, shouldn’t the Echidna be called the Gryphon? Anyway, despite other names being suggested, Echidna is the name that stuck.
So here is the mother of all monsters, in the Hesiod tradition with her pretty face and hungry snake tail, talking to the cute monotreme that bears her name.
Drawn with colouring pencil.
Which version of the legend do you prefer? And did you know that baby Echidnas are called puggles? You do now!
Iseult Murphy 
I love your drawing and it’s really interesting to learn about the Greek mother of all monsters. I like your theories, and no, I didn’t know of puggles!! What a cute name!
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Puggles is such a cute name, and much more appropriate for such a cute animal. Thank you, Valinora.
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Great drawing (as usual). Now I got sidetracked and went and looked it up. Interesting post!
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Thanks, Herb! Glad to hear you found it interesting. 😊
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I’ve heard of flesh eating monsters that are irresistible to men, but in the mythology I’m familiar with they are called Women.
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Echidna is that AND a snake!
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I thought all women had the capability of turning into snakes at a moments notice…. shows what I know. In all seriousness, I wonder if there’s a connection between this and the story of Eve and the Serpent.
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I wonder that too. Could the two have been combined into one creature over centuries of telling the story?
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It certainly seems plausible.
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The picture showed up
late as I scrolled down. So many new things learnt.
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Thank you 😊
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Well, darn, I haven’t been receiving notices of your blog posts. I’ll have to try unsubscribing and resubscribing. (This has happened on other blogs I follow, too. Wp doesn’t like me sometimes!)
I didn’t know what a Echidna was. “Puggles,” that’s cute!
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Oh no! I hope resubscribing fixes the issue. I know wp has randomly unfollowed blogs I follow, so it can be a bit glitchy.
Puggles is such a cute term! You should look up a picture of them, they’re so cute! Thanks, Priscilla 😊
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Bizarre. For some reason I thought it was called that by the indigenous people here. Thanks for your insight.
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I can see why you thought that. It has various indigenous names – Bigibila (Gamilaraay), Wandayali (Wiradjuri), Yinarlingi (Warlpiri), and Jana Jana (Bundjalung).
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It’s interesting how women are frequently monsters who eat men in world mythology. Yeesh. And very cool about egg-laying mammals. I’d forgotten about the platypus. Now I need to go look up the other. 😀
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Yup. It’s a recurring theme!
Thanks, Diana. I love monotremes. Hope you have fun looking up the Echidna. 😊
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