P is for Porcupine
In Everything Comes To Light, Hank and Carl have a rather unpleasant encounter with a porcupine that falls out of a tree. “Happens all the time,” Hank declares. And actually, it’s true!
Porcupines, which are nocturnal, often sleep in trees, and they eat bark and leaves. As the delicacies of porcupine cuisine are tender buds and shoots at the ends of branches, they tend to push their luck and end up on the forest floor. Porcupines are herbivores but have been known to eat other items such as canoe paddles, backpacks, garden tools, and as they have a great need for salt in their diet, boots and tires with road salt.
Seems everything about porcupines starts with a P. The word porcupine means quill pig, although they’re not pigs, but rodents. A baby is called a porcupette, and females typically give birth to one baby a year, though twins can happen. A group of them is called a prickle, and as each one has about 30,000 quills, they are very prickly. Can you say “prickly porcupine prickles prepare plentiful plant picnics” five times fast?
Porcupines would rather flee than fight and give warnings when they feel threatened including clacking their teeth, dispelling a bad odor, raising their backs, and running away (although this is not very effective as their top speed is 2 mph). Porcupines cannot shoot out their quills. Normally they lay against the body and are covered with a layer of fur, but when attacked the porcupine will raise the quills beneath, and if a predator touches them the quills dislodge. Also, porcupines will slap aggressors with their tails leaving behind a multitude of quills, each one barbed and difficult to remove.
Porcupines aren’t aggressive toward humans and sometimes tend to wander into human spaces. They don’t hibernate but will curl up in warm places. They are very vocal, making pleasant sounds, and are generally pretty cute animals. To learn more and hear how they “talk” check out these fun videos:
https://youtu.be/cILZ_cB3_so?si=tQAa4DJYgGZ-rtWn