Monday, March 16, 2020

Brazilian Prehensile-tailed Porcupine


This is probably a Brazilian Prehensile-tailed Porcupine or Coendou prehensilis.  Here is a short description of the porcupines around the world.
Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp spines, or quills, that protect them against predators. The term covers two families of animals: the Old World porcupines of family Hystricidae, and the New World porcupines of family Erethizontidae. Both families belong to the infraorder Hystricognathi within the profoundly diverse order Rodentia and display superficially similar coats of quills: despite this, the two groups are distinct from each other and are not closely related to each other within the Hystricognathi.
They would be cute animals if they did not have so many quills. I found this one in the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C. 

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