Spying on echidnas' sex lives for decades, researcher says there's still much to learn
One of Kangaroo Island's blonde echidnas. (Supplied: Nikki Redman)
She has jokingly been called a "perve in the bush" but it is thanks to the 35 years that Peggy Rismiller has spent watching the sex lives of echidnas that we know as much as we do about the fascinating world of these egg-laying mammals.
Dr Rismiller and her partner Mike McKevely live and work at Pelican Lagoon on Kangaroo Island after being drawn there separately decades prior by a common love of animals and the environment.
Both originally Americans, they are now confirmed Islanders.
Peggy Rismiller and Mike McKelvey first met when they were collecting tiger snakes. (ABC South East SA: Caroline Horn)
Originally from Arizona, Mr McKevely arrived while working as a photographer on a series of books with iconic author Colin Thiele. He stayed and began working with CSIRO researchers and the island's little penguin colonies in 1970.
Dr Rismiller found her way there in the 1980s.
Growing up in rural Ohio, she had developed a love of nature and reptiles in particular.
After studying in Germany, Australia with its large and varied snake population seemed the obvious place to further her career.
However, the only research grant she could get at the time was to work half with the Kangaroo Island's tiger snakes and half with its spiny, enigmatic echidnas.
"I thought, 'OK, an egg-laying mammal and a reptile that gives live birth. That's weird enough,'" she said.
"So here I am, 35 years later. Still here."
Brought together by snake blood
One of her first tasks on the island involved venturing out at night to collect blood samples from the isolated colonies of tiger snakes on the islets of Pelican Lagoon.
University policy dictated she needed someone with her whenever working with venomous animals.
Mike McKelvey was hired and the pair set out in a small boat to collect the snakes and then extract blood samples, under the glow of infra-red lights.
Kangaroo Island's tiger snakes give birth to live young. (Supplied: Nikki Redman)
"We're sitting there trying to get this blood from a tiger snake. Gets very romantic," she joked.
Since then, the couple have made it their lifework to watch, document and teach others about how animals are influenced by their environment, both on Kangaroo Island and around the world.
For more than 35 years their research centre and home at the lagoon has been a welcoming hub for visiting researchers, students, botanists and artists.
As well as being the centre of their own work it has also been a working example of how to live sustainably, having been solar powered since Mr McKelvey first arrived in the 1970s.
They also periodically welcome small groups of tourists, and entertaining stories help to educate the visitors.
In forthright style, Dr Rismiller explains in detail the echidna's four-headed penis, a pseudo pouch that forms only after impregnation, and a milk patch that feeds their young.
Dr Rismiller takes a direct but humorous approach to educating people about animals. (ABC South East SA: Caroline Horn)
She also speaks about her beloved tiger snakes and the island's goannas, also known as Rosenberg's monitors.
"I watch echidnas mate in the winter and goannas in the summer. I've been told I'm a perve in the bush," she said.
In the early days of research, before radio transmitters and microchips, it could take them up to 300 hours of searching to find a particular animal, such as Big Mumma, who they've been observing all these years, and as her name suggests, is a particularly good breeder.
Dr Rismiller and Mr McKelvey have been observing older echidnas such as Big Mumma for 35 years. (Supplied: Mike McKelvey)
Thanks to the pair's work we now know that echidnas can live for more than 50 years, that females can be as old as 12 before reproducing, and that their babies can be left alone in the burrow for as long to five days after gorging on milk.
Numbers dwindling
For Dr Rismiller and Mr McKelvey, Kangaroo Island is a window into Australia's ecological past.
Unlike the mainland, the native vegetation here has not been ravaged by the introduction of European rabbits, something Mr McKelvey says helped the plant life to regenerate quickly after the bushfires of almost five years ago.
Their work has led to the echidnas on the island being recognised as endangered, something Dr Rismiller believes should be extended to the mammals Australia-wide.
Dr Rismiller grew up in Ohio in the US but has spent decades studying Kangaroo Island's animals. (Supplied: Mike McKelvey)
Because even here on foxless Kangaroo Island, echidna numbers are dwindling.
"It's cat kills and cars," Dr Rismiller said. "They don't have any other predators."
Dr Rismiller is part of the Kangaroo Island Landscape Board that has a goal of one day eradicating feral cats from the island.
"There are more feral cats on Kangaroo Island than any place else in Australia," she said.
That's because feral cats have become the apex predator on the island.
Five hundred cages have been set up, using 4G technology to send a signal when a cat has been trapped and needs to be recovered.
Additionally, a cat-proof fence is being built to see if it is possible to remove them entirely from the island's Dudley Peninsula.
There are now 500 cat traps across Kangaroo Island. (Supplied: Kangaroo Island Landscape Board)
Dr Rismiller is also the island's go-to person for caring for injured echidnas and has hand-reared puggles, as baby echidnas are known, teaching them to take milk from the palm of her hand.
Even after 35 years she says there is still much to learn about the echidnas on their island home, including how they communicate and if it involves vibrations through their spines.
"Field biologists can never retire," Dr Rismiller said.
What they both hope is that the work they've done, the records, and the extensive microchipping of the island's echidna and goanna population will be of use, as Dr Rismiller puts it, "for future studies when I'm long gone".