Piggybillah the puggle born on Gold Coast
Piggiebillah, or Piggy for short, is a very special puggle - one of only 16 in the world ever bred in captivity.
Small enough to curl up in the palm of a hand and weighing just over 600 grams, the baby echidna was shown to the outside world on Wednesday for the first time.
It was born at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, on the Gold Coast, on August 5.
While echidnas are under no threat and are still classified as common in Australia, they are notoriously difficult to breed.
Senior mammal keeper Lauren Clark says no-one knows why the young have such a high mortality rate. Research is difficult because the animals are so secretive in the wild.
"Some animals breed very well in captivity and some need the slightest little adjustments to make it possible," she said.
"We're still trying to figure out what ingredients we are missing to breed them more successfully."
After hatching from an egg, Piggy spent two months in its mother's pouch.
After 100 days it weighed 370g, and 37 days later it weighs 630g. That's thanks to a diet of rich milk, which the mother secretes from her body and Piggy laps up from her fur.
In captivity Piggy will probably grow to five or six kilograms and reach the age of 50.
No-one will know the sex of the baby for several months but senior mammal keeper Lindy Thomas is hoping for a female.
"We have more males in our program than females and it would be really great for us to get a captive female we can keep in our collection for future breeding," she said.
Ms Thomas said there are hopes the breeding program will find answers to aid the survival of an echidna relative in New Guinea.
"There are only three types of monotreme in the world: the short-beaked echidna and the platypus in Australia, and the long-beaked echidna in New Guinea which is critically endangered," she said.
"Hopefully if we can breed the short-beaked echidna in captivity we might be able to breed the long-beaked echidna as well."