Porcupines are best known for the long, sharp quills they use for defense against predators. Up to 30,000 of these hollow-point weapons cover the North American porcupine. While they can’t shoot their quills, they do have some superpowers: porcupines can swim, sing, dance, and yes, even climb trees!
What is a porcupine?
Odds are you know the silhouette of this iconic creature. Perhaps you’ve also heard that it’s name means “thorny pig.” But did you know that it’s actually the second largest member of the rodent family?
(The number one title belongs to…the beaver!). Porcupines can grow to be two to three feet long and weigh more than 20 pounds! A thick cover of quills, made of keratin like our hair or fingernails, covers their backs.
They also have sharp claws on both their front and hind legs that are excellent for climbing. Their strong, prehensile tails can also be used to stabilize their bodies and even to grip branches as they climb!
What do porcupines eat?
Porcupines are herbivores, and consume a wide range of plant parts, from nuts, seeds, and fruits to leaves, grasses, roots, and stems. The low-slung, lumbering porcupine struggles to navigate the deep snow in winter, so tree climbing is a useful skill for finding food. Evergreen trees are a favorite snack, and porcupines will eat the bark, twigs, buds, and needles.
In fact, porcupines can feed so heavily on a single tree that they destroy it (which is not so great if the tree is in your yard!) “Hello, critter control? I have a porcupine infestation!”
Joking aside, a desire for salt in their diet can lead porcupines to munch on wooden tool handles and canoe paddles that have picked up salt from sweaty hands. Porcupines will even gnaw on outhouses because of the salt content in urine.
Where do porcupines live?
There are 29 porcupine species living across the globe, but only one that lives in North America (territorial much?). Despite this, porcupines are social creatures: a group of them is called (appropriately enough) a prickle.
From Mexico and the … Read the rest of the story.
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