Where do porcupines live in nature?

Where do the porcupines live? These prickly representatives of the detachment of rodents settled throughout the world. They can be found in Africa, in South and North America, in Asian countries and even in Europe. Representatives of different continents differ by their appearance and habits. Porcupine habitats are reflected, as a rule, in the name of the species: South African, Indian, Malay, Javanese, North American.

Thorny rodent

The main feature of the porcupine is the needles with which his back is covered. They give the animal a formidable and frightening appearance, this is the purpose and nature pursued when creating this beast. The rodent, whose average weight is about 13 kg and length - about 80 cm, bears up to 30 thousand needles. In places where porcupines live, the legends used to say that these animals use poisonous needles to shoot at the enemy. In fact, light, up to 250 grams, needles are simply lost and fall off when walking on rough terrain. Their toxicity is also highly questioned, although the prick is quite painful and can cause inflammation in a person.

Air-filled needles serve as porcupines for the porcupine, which allows them to successfully swim. The exotic outfit, given to nature by the nature of the animal for protection, became its enemy in the human environment. It is because of the colorful and long needles that go for jewelry, most often they destroy these animals. In Asian countries, porcupine meat is considered a delicacy.

Porcupine habitat

Prickly animals are considered more mountain animals. Long, with a lot of corridors burrows they can equip in caves, mountain voids, but also successfully dig themselves. Settlements of some species can be found both in the steppes and in the foothills, but even here they choose places with ravines and slopes.

Porcupine does not belong to predators. The diet consists of rootlets, fruits and berries of plants in the area where porcupines live in nature. These vegetarians are not averse to profit from the garden and often raid the farmstead of the peasants. Porcupines well climb trees, lead a nocturnal life, and in the afternoon they sleep. Strong teeth allow the rodent to rip off the bark and gnaw the wood, so much so that over the winter up to hundreds of plantings and ruin.

Porcupine crested, or crested

This type of echinoderms is the most common and typical, is also called Asian. Quite a large representative of a kind. There are males weighing 25-27 kg. The length of the trunk is up to a meter, plus 10-15 cm is the tail. A beautiful coloring is the alternation of needles of black-brown and white flowers. Where do the crested puppies live? Their distribution covers almost the entire Middle East region to the most southerly regions of China, India, Sri Lanka. It also occurs in some countries of South-East Asia, on the Arabian Peninsula.

They eat Asiatic greens: grass and leaves, do not mind dragging gourds, grapes, apples, cucumbers from the kitchen gardens. Therefore, they settle closer to the cultivated areas. In winter they pass to the tree bark.

Ectopic Africans

The largest of African rodents, the South African porcupine reaches 63-80 cm in length and weighs from 1 to 24 kg. It is distinguished by long, up to 50 cm, spines and running along the croup with a white line. Needles on the tail are assembled in an elegant bundle. Where does the porcupine live? The mainland Africa, the southern part of it, is the motherland of the animal.

Another representative of this continent is an African brush-tailed porcupine. Its range covers the countries of the central part of the continent and the island of Fernando-Po. Bony-tailed, it is named because of a light hair brush on the tip of a bare scaly tail. This echinodermal rodent swims well, except for the habitual plant food it eats and small insects.

Indian Porcupine

Appearance of this animal is similar to the usual Asian rodent, it has a beautiful black-brown-white coloration, a black head and paws. This is the most unpretentious kind of porcupines: animals live both in the highlands, and in the forest, and in the steppe regions, and even in semi-deserts. Eat all the vegetable, roots and bulbs. Despite the Indian name, it feels good in the mountains of the Caucasus, Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

Sumatra and Borneo

In the forests and agricultural lands of the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, an atypical representative of this family is found: a long-tailed porcupine. Its dissimilarity with fellow humans is manifested in the fact that it has needles very thin and flexible, from afar similar to a dense brown stubble. They are located in the back of the trunk, closer to the tail. The whole appearance of this porcupine resembles an ordinary large rat. Long-tailed individuals well climb trees and shrubs, like bamboo shoots, fruits, pineapples.

On the island of Sumatra, there is also a Sumatran porcupine, which lives only in this place. This animal is relatively smaller than its relatives. The maximum length of Sumatran endemic is 56 cm, the largest weight is 5.4 kg. Its appearance is similar to the long-tailed - the same thin needles, more like bristles. The color is also brown, but the ends of the setae are white.

The porcupine porcupine is considered to be an aboriginal Borneo. His appearance allows him to refer him to the relatives of the Sumatran representative, but his needles are harder, and the sizes are bigger. In addition to habitual habitats in forests and mountain ranges, these animals can also be found in cities where they eat greenery and fruits in parks and squares.

Where porcupines live in America

Needleshearts, who live on both American continents, are very similar to their typical tropical relatives, but have smaller sizes and weights. This is a mini-copy of these porcupines, more like a hedgehog. Americans are covered with spines evenly, do not have particularly long needles in the back.

North American porcupines live in the US, Canada. They have hidden their thorns under a thick cover of wool. This is the only kind of North America.

The southern continent has a great diversity of species. American porcupines are called woody, they deftly climb trees, some settle there for permanent residence in nests or hollows. There are species with tenacious tails up to 45 cm long, which they cling to branches and bushes.

Are there porcupines in Europe?

Rodents with spines do not belong to typical representatives of European fauna, but nevertheless in Europe there are places where porcupines live. In which country did these heat-loving animals find their place? Families of these carriers of thorns can be found in Greece, Italy, Sicily. Here the porcupines are ordinary or crested. Scientists argue about whether the colonization of porcupines in this area was an evolutionary process, or brought by their ancient Romans, who were great fans of porcupine meat. In Russia, crested porcupines can be found in the South-Eastern Caucasus.