and the short—beaked echidna, an egg—laying creature which is the world's oldest surviving mammal. everyone loves echidnas, and echidnas are really good in the environment. both echidnas and goannas are our natural gardeners. so they're very, very good. they're both diggers, that means they are cultivating the soil, they are turning over the soil, and they are helping the natural environment actually spread. just days after the worst fires in living memory reduced much of the island's bushland to ash, dr rismiller discovered the first vital signs of recovery. immediately after the fire we still found invertebrate life. we still found the ants, the termites, the spiders. all of those were also food sources for other things. there were areas of refuge, areas that didn't burn, where animals did take refuge,