Image of an Echidna captured (rummaging in the yard of my parents place) using a Nikon D610 and Tamron 150-600mm. This Image was a three shot HDR (base image was 600mm, 1/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 2500 and shot handheld). The HDR image was created in Aurora HDR before being finished off in Luminar AI (primarily using Accent AI, and Structure AI). I used Topaz Denoise AI to reduce the overall noise (as the ISO was bumped because I was shooting handheld) and Topaz Sharpen AI just to generally apply a sharpen to the image. Finally I finished off using Affinity Photo mainly to remove some distracting elements from the image using the cloning tool and the inpainting tool.

For those that are interested apparently the echidnas are named after Echidna who was a creature in Greek mythology who was half woman and half snake and was perceived to have qualities of both reptiles and mammals. They are from the Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Monotremata, Suborder: Tachyglossa and Family: Tachyglossidae. Genetic data (from the Molecular Clock) suggests that echidna's split from the platypuses between 19 and 48 million years ago.