For anybody who's interested... [pics]

The picture is a bit deceptive as to the size, but these three guys are each about a metre long, with the bulk of a fully-grown badger, plus foot-long quills! They're the largest porcupines in the world and have been known to kill lions.

Needless to say, I took this picture from behind the safety of the heavy, wooden gate.

They kill LIONS????

I hope that whoever has the task of renewing their lovely clean straw bed has a good suit of armour

That would be me, in a couple of weeks!

They don't attack with teeth and claws, but they race backwards with their quills raised. The quills can cause very serious injuries.

I'm hoping I'll be given shin pads or something.

Shin pads at the very least Eleanor!

Personally, I would be demanding full body armour!

I might just do that! Though I think it'll be done through a switch system. I'll shut them in the indoor enclosure while I do the outdoor enclosure, then let them out and do the indoor enclosure. And run like hell if they start shaking their quills at me!

They're large and can cause a lot of damage to your car. We have loads of them around here. They don't run off when frightened they spread their quills and reverse towards the danger. The quills are very loose and pull out easily - they don't shoot them like some people believe!
They don't kill lions, the resulting infection can kill a lion but that happens very rarely. The quills pull out quite easily with pliers.
I've helped a friend pull them out of his dog. Dogs are stupid and don't have respect for a porcupine.
They're basically over grown rats and farmers kill them as they tear through feed bags and cause lots of damage to produce and fields.
The babies are pretty cute though.

That's what I meant. They don't attack lions with the intent of killing them, but rather they use their quills as a defence mechanism, which has led to bye-bye-lion, since the injuries can be very deep, depending on which quills made contact. I was looking through one of the university journals a couple of days ago and it had the statistics of the number of lions, hyenas, leopards, etc., killed as a result of porcupine injuries. Quite impressive, really!

The ones on site have already been put on risk assessment four times for injuring somebody! One of the incidents was quite serious, which wasn't a laughing matter, but the other three were relatively minor.

I didn't actually know that you got North African Crested Porkies in South Africa. Are there many around?

We have what I know as the Cape Porcupine (I will have to google to see what their real name is???)
Yes there are quite a lot - maybe not many. I have 2 that live on the farm with me (plus a Duiker, tortoises and some Bush pigs)

A friend and myself almost killed ourselves trying to miss one coming towards our car - on turn with a steep incline, middle of the night - and my dad hit one once causing R25000.00 worth of damage to our car. They become active at dusk and their colouring make them hard to spot on the road.

Leopards love them some porcupine.

But they are beautiful.

Shisa wrote:We have what I know as the Cape Porcupine (I will have to google to see what their real name is???)
Yes there are quite a lot - maybe not many. I have 2 that live on the farm with me (plus a Duiker, tortoises and some Bush pigs)

A friend and myself almost killed ourselves trying to miss one coming towards our car - on turn with a steep incline, middle of the night - and my dad hit one once causing R25000.00 worth of damage to our car. They become active at dusk and their colouring make them hard to spot on the road.

Leopards love them some porcupine.

Ah, it looks like we're talking about different porkies! The ones onsite are North African Crested. Though I still wouldn't cross a Cape Porkie, at any rate!

Yikes! Hope nobody was injured!

tracyp wrote:But they are beautiful.

They are

Had somebody asking if it wouldn't be easier to just "cut off their quills, so that we can interact with them without getting hurt". Should have seen the death glares she got.

Was interesting reading about them. Basically the same, ours are just a bit bigger and run sideways to attack as well
Do you have Pangolins? Now there is a fascinating creature.

There seems to be some scientific debate about that. Wikipedia claims that the Cape Porkies are the largest, while ARKive claims that the South African Crested Porkie is. Although I suppose it could be a case of length versus bulk, and perhaps the inclusion or exclusion of quill length.

Ugh, I don't give a damn! My brain's mush! They're big and spikey - that's all that matters!

We don't have any Pangolins... But we may have some anteaters in the future!

Pangolins are weird and wonderful. I've read some about them but never seen one.
Anteaters remind me of Alf

I love Alf! And we always say Alf looks like Dempsey!

I've never seen one either. I want to, though!

I think I've only seen one, once and it was very fleeting.
There are so many fascinating creatures.

They look lovely but I would have stayed behind the gate too A friend in the US told me about his poor dog having run ins with them and having to pull out the quills. I don't think the dog ever learned from it lol.

I've seen anteaters at zoos, but that's about it.

One of the things I love about my course is the huge variety, especially in the exotic species centre. The civet, for instance - I've never seen one before the guy in the EC, even in zoos!

And poor dog!