How many quills are on a porcupine

When threatened, streaked tenrecs erect a circle of menacing spines around their heads and, if necessary, buck at attackers to drive spines deep into their skin. Although they superficially resemble a cross between the anteaters of South America and the hedgehogs of Eurasia and Africa, they are not closely related to either. In reality, they are in the order Monotremata , an ancient lineage of egg-laying mammals that contains only five living species: four species of echidna and the platypus.

Of all of the spiny mammals, the quills of the echidna are perhaps the least studied. While they resemble hedgehog quills in shape — they are short, thick, and unbarbed — their structure is more akin to porcupines — the core of the quill is filled with a foam-like material.

The quills have very robust walls relative to their diameters 2 mm in diameter with 0. This and the relatively blunt tips on each quill suggest that they function as tough body armor, but future research may reveal whether echidna quills are also used in anointing, shock absorption, or one of the many other functions associated with the spiny mammals.

Brockie, R. Self-anointing by wild hedgehogs, Erinaceus europaeus , in New Zealand. Animal Behaviour, 24 1 , Caro, T. Antipredator defenses in birds and mammals. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Contrasting coloration in terrestrial mammals. B Biol. Chapman, R. Biology of the Integument 2: Vertebrates. Springer Berlin Heidelberg: Chernova, O. Architectonic and diagnostic significance of hair cuticle. Izvestiia Akademii nauk. Structural features of spines in some rodents Rodentia: Myomorpha, Hystricomorpha. Biology Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences , 28 4 , — A comparative study of thin structure of tenrec spines. Zoologichesky Zhurnal , 83 2 , — Cho, W. Microstructured barbs on the North American porcupine quill enable easy tissue penetration and difficult removal.

Eisenberg, J. The tenrecs: a study in mammalian behavior and evolution. City of Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Endo, H. A quill vibrating mechanism for a sounding apparatus in the streaked tenrec Hemicentetes semispinosus. Zoological Science , 27 5 , — Gould, E. Evidence for echolocation in the Tenrecidae of Madagascar. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , 6 : Hoey, K. Ultrastructure of echimyid and murid rodent spines.

Journal of Zoology , 3 , — Lekagul, B. Mammals of Thailand. Saha Karn Bhaet Co. Mohr, E. Dens in tree branches or tangles of roots, rock crevices, brush or logs are the porcupine's home.

Porcupines are nocturnal, which means they are active during the night and sleep during the day. During the night, they forage for food. New World porcupines spend their time in the trees, while Old World porcupines stay on the ground. Porcupines aren't really social. Both types of porcupines are typically solitary, though New World porcupines may pair up.

A mother and her young is considered a family group called a prickle. Porcupines are herbivores. This means they eat mostly vegetation. Some porcupines love wood and eat a lot of bark and stems. They also eat nuts, tubers, seeds, grass, leaves, fruit and buds. When baby porcupines are born their quills are soft, but within an hour they harden.

Physiology The Porcupine looks most like a prickly beaver! Range Porcupines are found all across North America. Download a printable version of this page See more of our Animal of the Month features for kids.

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The Franklin Expedition. The North. The Polar Blog. The Terror. Cho also found that the barbs increase the force needed to remove the quill by four times. As the quills are pulled out, the barbs flare out and bend, snagging onto tissue fibres. These have all the same properties as the natural ones, and Karp sees many uses for them. For a start, they could be used as a replacement for surgical staples. They could also be used for any device that stabs into flesh, from needles, to tissue tunnellers used in bypass operations, to the meshes used to repair hernias.

If a quill-inspired needle could be jabbed in more easily, surgeons might be able to place them more accurately. Of course, you would then have to get those devices out again, and barbed porcupine quills would make that more difficult.

He wonders if African predators, like lions and leopards, are more aggressive than North American ones. Alternatively, African porcupines are larger than North American ones, and have longer quills — maybe, that makes a difference.