Description
Porcupines are usually dark brown or black in color, with white highlights. They have a chunky body, a small face, short legs and a short thick tail. This species is the largest of the New World porcupines and is one of the largest North American rodents, second only to the American beaver in size. The head-and-body length is 60 to 90 cm (2.0 to 3.0 ft), not counting a tail of 14.5 to 30 cm (5.7 to 12 in). The hindfoot length is 7.5 to 9.1 cm (3.0 to 3.6 in). Weight can range from 3.5 to 18 kg (7.7 to 40 lb), although they average under 9 kg (20 lb). Their upper parts are covered with thousands of sharp, barbed hollow spines or quills (actually modified hairs), which are used for defense. Porcupines do not throw their quills, but the quills detach easily and the barbs make them difficult to remove once lodged in an attacker. The quills are normally flattened against the body unless the animal is disturbed. The porcupine also swings its quilled tail towards a perceived threat.
Porcupines are nearsighted and slow-moving. Porcupines are selective in their eating; out of 1000 trees in the Catskill forest, one or two are acceptable lindens, and one is a bigtooth aspen. Consequently, the porcupine has "an extraordinary ability to learn complex mazes and to remember them as much as a hundred days afterward".
The porcupine is the only native North American mammal with antibiotics in its skin. Those antibiotics prevent infection when a porcupine falls out of a tree and is stuck with its own quills upon hitting the ground. Porcupines fall out of trees fairly often because they are highly tempted by the tender buds and twigs at the ends of the branches. The porcupine and the skunk are the only North American mammals that have black and white colours because they are the only mammals that benefit from letting other animals know where and who they are in the dark of the night.
Read more about this topic: North American Porcupine
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