More crossword vocabulary

The smallest unit of DNA was the clue. I ended up backing into the word. The dictionary definition includes a little more information, though.

muton: n. The smallest unit of DNA at which a mutation can occur; a nucleotide.

An ostrich-like bird? It ended up as "maa". The definitions I found were not quite consistent with the clue, though. An abbreviation for Master-At-Arms; an ethnolinguistic group in Vietnam; macroaggregated albumin (???); and a common European gull. Unless European gulls are significantly larger than their American cousins, the "ostrich" clue seems a bit off.

Pali's clue was a Sanskrit dialect. More specifically,

a dialect descended from Sanskrit, and like that, a dead language, except when used as the sacred language of the Buddhist religion in Farther India, etc.

Who knew that an echidna was an egg-laying mammal? Not I. Here's a more precise definition:

Either of two nocturnal, burrowing, egg-laying mammals of the genera Tachyglossus and Zaglossus of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, having a spiny coat, slender snout, and an extensible sticky tongue used for catching insects. Also called spiny anteater.