What are they?
They are mammals in the rodent family. They are the second largest rodent in North America and they can live up to 20 years old.
What do they look like?
They are brownish black. They have 4 legs and claws. They have 3 layers of hair. The first layer is soft, the second layer is the quills (quills are a kind of hair!) and the third layer keeps them warm. They can be up to 20 pounds and 2 to 3 feet long. Although they are round, they are really good climbers! And they eat with their hands.
Where do they live?
Porcupines originated in Africa. They arrived in South America around 30 million years ago and slowly migrated north. They arrived in North America around 3 million years ago. Today their range is almost all of Canada, New England, Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and Western United States.
What do they eat?
They prefer to eat primarily hemlock "nip twigs". Nip twigs are the very ends of branches. They bit it off and eat those needles, the older needles don't really have a lot of nutritional value so they just drop them to the ground. They also eat roots, berries, and other vegetation.
Other fun facts
They don't shoot their quills!! Their quills fall off if a predator, or curious animal, gets too close and they get stuck in the curious animal.
Very near sighted and very bad hearing
Due to their bad eye sight and hearing, they have a very good sense of smell and sensitive whiskers.
They are the only mammal in the United States that has antibiotics in their skin. If they fall and get cut from their own quills, infection would not be good. It seems like evolution wins again by giving them antibiotics for themselves!
That's all we have this week! I hope you enjoy our episode! Catch us again in 2 weeks!