October 15, 2020 • 39 mins
We love animals. A lot. Especially underrated ones like the darling porcupine. Listen in today to learn all about these stabby little boogers.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
and this is Stuff you Should Know about porcupines, which
this is a great idea, Chuck, good job. You know
(00:26):
the porcupine. When you take away all those quills, it's
just a cute little guinea pig basically a giant one. Yeah,
a cute big guinea pig. Speaking of cute porcupines, Dude,
do you remember Teddy Bear the porcupine kind of went
a little viral a few years ago. You have to
(00:48):
watch Teddy Bear the porcupine, specifically Teddy Teddy Bear the
porcupine doesn't like to share on YouTube. And it is
this porcupine eating corn on the cop and making all
these sounds like cousin it and it is one of
the cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah,
we want to shout out Live Science, Smithsonian, Mental Floss,
(01:13):
the San Diego Zoo, and a couple of other websites
that I coupled together this wonderful bit on one of
our wonderful animal friends in the world. We'd love to
do these shows. Uh. It just made me think, have
you seen the octopus documentary thing yet? No? I haven't.
I'ven't been like kind of popping up in my in
(01:34):
my periphery. I don't really know what it is. Is
it just about OCTOPI well, it's it's called My Octopus Teacher.
I haven't seen it yet, but I just know the
the deal is this guy kind of gets to know
one octopus and that's, you know, a nice story in
suos is all. I know? That's neat. We'll have to
watch that. Yeah, I can't. I can't wait. But um,
(01:55):
and I mentioned that because you know, we've a long
said that the octopus is our favorite animal, but feel
like almost every time we've done one on an animal,
it's on something that we love. And boy do I
love the quill pig. I do too. Yeah, apparently that's
what the their Latin name means, quill pig. That is
(02:15):
fantastic um. And it turns out a chuck that there
are basically two groups that porcupines get lumped into. There's
a bunch of different gene genei yeah that's right, and
species um. But there they basically fall under two categories.
It's Old World, which is Europe, Africa, Asia, and the
New World, which is North, South and Central America. Um.
(02:39):
And if you saw a you know, porcupine in South
America and you saw one in you know, the Himalayas,
you probably would be like, that's porcupine. That's porcupine too.
They're not radically different like some Old World and New
worlds um um animals are. Yeah. But something I saw
that was interesting was that they evolved separately what one
(03:02):
of those what is it called co evolutions or whatever. No,
I didn't see that. That's that is crazy. I saw that,
and I only saw it in one place, So I
think that might have been a personal hypothesis as somebody
who got them maybe website. I saw it somewhere though. Uh.
And then the two actually, um, the Old World in
(03:24):
the New World have less in common than they do
individually with like some other rodents in their area. Yeah,
so I'm actually not surprised to hear that. But the
one thing that they do have in common across the
board is that they have quills, and that they use
their quills defensively. Now what their quills look like, um,
(03:45):
how they use their quills. Um. There's a lot of
other distinctions and differences between Old World and New World,
but they all have quilts. They're all porcupines. That seems
to be the thing that that binds them. It's the
tie that binds that family. Yeah, and it's just it's
easy to take the porcupine for granted, I think, and
just say, yeah, that the little animal with all those quills.
(04:06):
But when you take a step back and look at
it and think about the evolution of the porcupine, that uh,
like I said, it's sort of would be a very large,
sort of cute, little fluffy guinea pig, but it probably
got eaten a lot um and then you know, they
said nuts to this nature steps in. It's like, all right,
(04:28):
how about this. What if we were just animal pincushions
such that if he came anywhere near us, you would
be stabbed repeatedly if you tried to eat us. Like,
It's one of the most amazing evolutionary adaptations I've ever seen. Yeah,
and I mean they they can really use those things too. Um.
(04:48):
There's a longstanding myth that they can shoot them, which
is not true. But apparently even Aristotle fell for that one.
And what a dummy. But they can use them in
some pretty interesting way. And you hit the nail on
the head when you said, you know, step back if
you see a porcupine, that is good advice. You should
probably step back because depending on these the species, or
(05:11):
whether it's Old World or New World, those quills can
mess you up pretty good. Yeah. But also you know,
get nearby and take a look, like they're not going
to come after you. That porcupine is a very kind
hearted animal and those are for defense. A porcupine is
never going to charge you and you know, leap at
(05:32):
your belly to to put quills all in your stomach. Um,
So take a little look, admire it for what it is. UM.
I think you know, to talk about porcupine is a
lot of this is talking about the Old World versus
the Rush version. Yeah, so the big differences that I saw, UM,
(05:52):
And there's lots of differences between different species within each
of these groups, but the Old World versus New World
has some big differences between a UM, and one of
them is that Old World are typically terrestrial porcupines. They
spend most of their lives on the ground. UM. They
live in burrows or caves, or rock dens and New
World porcupines they live on the ground too. They live
(06:15):
in burrows, but they're also very capable of climbing trees. UM,
and they'll they'll spend a significant amount of time and
sometimes nest in trees. And there are some species that
spend virtually their whole lives and trees, almost like sloths. Yeah. UM.
Quill wise, uh, the New World porcupines quills are going
to be shorter and smaller in general. I think they're
(06:37):
about four to ten four inches ten centimeters UM. The
Old World dudes and ladies they can get very long.
They can have quills up to twenty inches long. UM.
They can be marked with UM black and white bands.
And what they can do is these Old World guys
can puff them up UM, so they stand up and
(06:58):
are more intimidating and look Also. I mean it's weird
because it's it's like multi fuld like four or five
different things they do. By doing this, they look larger,
So that's always something that UM vulnerable animals try to
do in the wild. They look like a skunk a
little bit because of the black and white marking down
their back. They actually have a defensive musk kind of
(07:21):
like a a skunk, but just not nearly as bad. Yeah,
So they try to imitate a skunk a little bit. Um,
they look bigger, they they rattle. They can shake those
things and rattle them, which is another great adaptation to say,
like get away from me and don't try and eat me.
And supposedly that works pretty well too. Yeah, totally. And
then if all else fails, they're stabby. They are stabby.
(07:44):
So um. Sometimes the old world ones will actually charge
backwards toward a predator if they're feeling like they want
to stand their ground. Um. And that's usually when they're
caught out in the open. If they have a place
to hide, they'll stick their head in that used to
hide and then puff out their quills and make themselves
hard to get at. Um. But if they're on the open,
(08:06):
they may decide that they're going to fight off this
predator and they'll charge backward. And one other adaptation I
saw which I thought was was awesome. They'll have the
predator chase it and then they'll stop all of a sudden,
and the predator will run into them in their quills
for real, and then you hear the sound effect. Yeah,
exactly and then it's too late. Yeah. I mean it's
(08:28):
interesting because those quills, even though they puff them out,
they are pointed generally in the reverse direction, which you know,
which is why they have to back up into something
to to quill them or like you said, bury them.
Just throw on that that parking break real quick, and
all of a sudden, that fox has got a faceful
of quill. Right. So that Old world UM contains a
(08:51):
couple of species that are called crested porcupines, and they
basically look like if the quills were like an umbrella
open at the back of their head and just kind
of sticks out like that, and like you said, it
makes them look a lot bigger. They're a lot more dangerous. Um.
The big difference with quills between the Old World and
the New World, in addition to being shorter, is um
(09:15):
Old world porcupines are covered in quills. That's all they have.
Like they have Like I don't know if we said
or not, but quills are just modified hair. Um, They're
made of caratin. They're they're just like hair. They're just
ways stabbier than hair that you and I have, meats, fingernails. Basically, Yeah,
that's a great way to put it. And Old World
porcupines that's all they have our quills UM. New World
(09:38):
porcupines have quills that are also mixed in with um
fur like an undercoat, longer hairs UM, and their quills
kind of stand up and are are used for defense.
That's not just it's not all that they have UM.
And the other thing about their quills is that they
have little barbs, and New World um porcupines barbs make
(09:59):
the New World quails way more dangerous than Old World quils. Yeah.
It's like a little fishhook basically, and it'll instead of
just poking right into you, it'll actually snag in your
flesh and makes it, like you said, way way tougher
to get out. UM. Much harder time removing a New
World quill than an Old World quill. But those New
(10:20):
World guys are uh because their quills start further back.
You get the feeling if you just and I wouldn't
recommend this, but if you just go very gently and
just say, hey, little guy, you never do that. I
just I just want to give you a scritch under
the under the chin, and I think you might enjoy it.
(10:40):
And I'm gonna move very slowly, just don't turn around,
and you'll you'll have a really good time. I'd like
to include a disclaimer here, don't do it. You guys
should not listen to Chuck right now. He's doling out
some really terrible advice. Yeah, it's just because those quills
start further back. They got that cute little head and face,
and it just makes you want to give him a scratch. Yeah, no, totally.
(11:04):
Like if you watch Teddy Teddy Bear videos, um, Teddy
Bear the porcupine, you will want to go get one
as a pet. There's another one I saw called Diva,
and she's a baby porcupine. She's adorable. Um, yeah, you
totally want to do that. And I'm sure there are
ways to handle them. But I also saw, you know,
one of those zoo guys on a late night talk
show and he had I think an African crested porcupine
(11:27):
on his lap and that thing was not at all
worried or scared or um in any sort of defense mode.
And that dude was in pain just letting this thing
sit on his lap because I don't know. You said,
you know, they look like guinea pigs, and I said,
overgrown guinea pigs. Some of these things can get really big.
There's a cape porcupine. I think it's the biggest one.
They get up to like sixty five pounds. Sixty pounds
(11:50):
is like a large dog and with quills though, with
the quills puffed up. No, like there's sixty five pounds,
you're sound. And then but imagine a sixty five pound
dog with those quills. That's that's dangerous. Yeah, what I meant.
I know they don't actually weigh more when they puff up,
but they can when they put those quills out, they
(12:11):
can look two to three times their size. So yeah,
imagine that thing looks enormous. And actually I don't do
this much, but I'm watching that that thing eat that
corn on the cob right now. Isn't that adorable? Yeah,
I have to have the sound down, so I'm gonna
go back and watch it. You have to hear the sound,
like the sound does it. But even without the sound,
he's just awfully cute. Yeah, it kind of They kind
(12:32):
of look like beavers a little bit too, and they
are related as fellow rodents. Um here, I think we
should take a break. So I'm getting kind of worked
up here, and we'll come back and talk more about
these cute little stabby suckers right after this. Okay, Charles,
(13:05):
we're back, and um, we've been talking mostly about quills. Yeah,
so one more thing about quills, and there's going to
be more than one more thing about quils, let's be honest.
But we said they couldn't shoot them. What they can do?
These things do fall out just like hair, and they
grow just like fingernails and will eventually fall so when
they shake, they if they have loose quills, they can
(13:28):
fly off. But they're still not like shooting, like Aristotle said,
like deadly needle darts. No, but they can be problematic,
like these things can puncture the sidewalls of tires. I
was reading them the blog of some tire company K
A L. Tires I think up in the Yukon, and
(13:48):
they said that it's actually it can be a problem
like on some roads. Yeah that if you're out in
the middle of nowhere and you run over a porcupine quill,
you're you're you're probably going to get a flat. That's
how I thinks. Tough those things are. Well, that's sad.
What for your tire, no for the for your afternoon? Well, No,
you're not running over Are you still watching Teddy Bear videos? No?
(14:11):
I thought you said if you run over a porcupine,
it can fine quill. Oh, well, being what is it?
Just a loose quill on the road. Yeah, exactly, that's
what I'm saying, Like just a loose quill laying on
the road. If you run over it goes into your sidewall,
You're probably going to get a flat tire. That's how
tough those things are. Okay, I thought you meant if
you actually run over a porcupine and you have like
a bunch of quills, I that would probably do it too,
(14:32):
especially if the porcupine was in a defensive procedure. But
the porcupine doesn't have to die in this case for
you to go flat tire. So regardless of that sadness
they there is sadness and that despite this great adaptation
and this great defense mechanism, they still can be hunted.
Um lions can still hunt them human people. There's the
(14:54):
bush meat trade for the old world porcupines that is
you know, just you know what that means. Uh, And
they're you know, they're owls, wolverines, pythons. Uh. There's something
called a fisher that looks sort of like a a weasel, bear,
fox or something. Did you pack that thing up? Yeah,
I think it's related to otters and weasels. Okay, but
(15:16):
it had a sort of a bear face. It was interesting.
But apparently stink too. Well. They stink in more ways
than one because they learned to flip these porcupines over
where they have that soft belly meat and no quills
as a way to attack them, which really makes me mad. Yeah,
I don't. I don't like fishers for that reason either.
I've never heard of them until recently, until we started
(15:38):
researching this, and I had neither. I don't like them.
I just don't like them. Eat something else, Yeah, leave
the porcupines alone, because they're actually pretty nice. Yeah, and
they don't eat what do they eat? They eat vegetables
and fruits and berries and nuts and tubers and roots. Yeah,
so um, they eat all those things. They'll also eat
(15:59):
crow ops, which is um. Porcupines are considered a nuisance,
especially if you're a farmer or even a gardener in
the suburbs, because they will eat your root vegetables. They
will eat corn um love corn apparently um. But they'll
also They have another thing too, where they need sodium
in their diet. They actually need they need a pretty
(16:22):
um even ratio of one to one of potassium to
sodium for their electrical conductivity in their body to work.
But they don't get much sodium in their diet. Um
Plants have lots of potassium, not much sodium, so they
have to go find it elsewhere. And it turns out
we humans have a lot of stuff that has sodium
in it. Apparently plywood glue contains a lot of sodium,
(16:46):
so they love eating wood structures we build out of plywood.
Um the salt that we put on the roads gets
kicked up on the underside of our car, So you
might find a porcupine chewing on the tie ears or
the hoses or belts or wires under your car. Yeah,
well that they would even because the humans sweat so
(17:08):
much salt when they're working that they'll go Like if
you have some some wooden pruners in your shed, they'll
go in there and they'll start eating the handle of
your pruners because it just has a residual human salt
left over on it. Right, you just walk in, You're like,
are you nuts? What is wrong with you, you porcupine
for those fellas, Yeah, well they'll find anywhere they can
(17:31):
find a natural salt, like they'll definitely eat that too.
But yes, anything that has human sweat on, even trace
amounts of human sweat, they'll go bonkers, like they eat
oars um, paddles, that kind of stuff. So but yes,
typically they eat um leaves, stems, they eat shoots and
leaves um. They also, though, and this is another reason
(17:53):
why they're considered a nuisance, they eat the bark off
the tree, so they're considered generalists. They'll eat just about
any kind of veget tatian um, which is actually they're
also super adaptable, which is why you'll find porcupines almost
anywhere there's vegetation um. But they they'll that's what they eat,
you know, spring, summer, fall, and then in winter. They
(18:13):
don't hibernate, which actually makes them kind of unusual as well.
But they they go from being um generalists to what's
known as um faculative specialists, meaning their diet becomes very
limited to just one or two types of trees, and
not just one or two types of trees. During the winter,
they may just feed on the inner bark of one tree,
(18:37):
and that can be problematic because the inner bark is
where nutrients and water moves from the roots to the
rest of the tree. And if that porcupine eats all
the way around it, what's called girdling a tree, it
can kill or seriously damage that tree. Yeah. So if
I mean, if you have a problem if you live
in the woods and stuff, and you see a tree,
(18:58):
it could be a beaver. But either way, you kind
of hand all the same. You can wrap like chicken
wire around it around the bottom, or some sort of
um aluminum or something cheating to keep the the beaver
and or porcupine from non on that thing. Yeah, and
I would guess you'd want to wear work gloves because
the salt from your hands is just gonna attract into
(19:18):
that chicken wire. Uh. Yeah, they eat. They're nocturnal, so
they're mainly doing this stuff at night. They're patrolling around,
they're defending their areas that they feed. I saw both.
I saw that their territorial I saw that they're also
not territorial. Yeah, it probably depends with you know, so
many different species because they will travel outside their home
(19:40):
range if they want to get a mate um or
if they need that salt. They're usually uh, they're fairly
solo flyers, although um, sometimes you'll see a couple of them.
Uh they may be made it, they may be siblings. Um.
I don't think we mentioned that. The Old World. Uh,
porcupines are actually a good swimmers, both of them are
(20:02):
for from what I understand. Oh really, m m okay. Yeah,
and New World will actually go swim out to gather
aquatic plants. They swim more than the Old World does.
But they just swim to collect plants and then they
bring it back to the shore to eat. Yeah. And
they're they're living in they don't they'll like sleep in
trees sometimes the climbers will. But uh, it seems like
(20:24):
they make use of other animals dens when they're not
around and they have left, Like they'll go to an
art vark den that has been abandoned or a hole
and they will change it around, maybe knocked down some walls,
open up that floor plan. So island in the kitchen, Yeah,
of course, gotta have the big island and then you know,
(20:46):
they they'll just adapt it to their needs because obviously
they're a little puffier than the ard vark. Yeah. And
in doing so, Chuck, A question that I kept running
up against was what role did porcupines play in the ecosystem?
And they think that one of the big roles they
played by basically disturbing stuff. They disturbed the soil when
they're when they're digging and burrowing and everything. Interesting. They
(21:09):
they found that they the through that they propagate way
more seeds than than would otherwise be propagated if they
weren't around. So forests are much more diverse with them
in it than without them because of all of their
scratching and moving and all that stuff. Yeah, and it
seems like for rodents they live a long time. They
(21:31):
can live and they I mean I sort of saw
a wild range anywhere from three to five years in
the wild to like ten years in the wild. I
saw one that lived to be eighteen. I saw the
record was five, which I think was second only two
a beaver as far as the rodent record. I think
there was a twenty eight year old beaver once I
(21:53):
saw one in Brazil was can live up to twenty
seven years in captivity. Yeah, so that's I mean, that's
long lived. But yeah, I saw three to five years too.
I guess it just depends on the species, you know. Yeah,
And the other thing about their feeding habits is they
eat seasonally, right, they're little hipsters. They eat seasonally and locally,
(22:17):
So depending on what's there, they will I think in
the winter they'll eat more evergreen needles and the like,
sort of the inner bark of the trees and stuff
like that. And then you know, when those sweet berries
come around or when that corn crop is coming in,
just look out. Then they turned back into generalists. That's right. So, um,
(22:37):
I feel like we cannot go any further, can't dance
around the fact that porcupines copulate um, and when they
do copulate, they produce offspring, and we should talk about that. Yeah,
should we break or should we do this and then break?
I feel like we're gonna need to take a break
(22:59):
after this. Okay. So porcupines have stabby quills. That's that
point backwards, that's right. And if you know how a
rodent in a mammal like this would have sex, it
is from something a male approaching the female from the rear. Yeah,
(23:19):
right where those things are pointing. And so you think,
how do they do this? What happens is the males
are gonna Um, they're gonna vie for the female. Like
so many animals, they have these sort of noisy battles
and they they whine and they stomp when they win
and stomp their tail and try to impress the lady,
puff their quills out. And if the lady says, all right,
(23:41):
I think you might be a good match for me,
what does he do? He sprays urine all over her.
That's right, and she goes, She goes, that was wonderful. Um,
let's go a big boy. Yeah, I'm gonna put down
I'm gonna lay down my quills. Yeah, and move the
(24:01):
tail to the side. It's a business time, right, Yeah,
because the tail is barbed. I don't think we said
that either. No, but like all the quills are barbed, right, Well, no,
I think the actual tail is barbed. Oh good lord
as well, which you can help with the climbing and stuff. Right.
So I think it would take being sprayed with your
into two. You would want to reach that level of
(24:24):
commitment to make sure that you could trust that that
barbed tail is going to be kept to the side.
Are we in? Right? And then yes that that definitely
says yes you're in. Um, you're in get it. I
told you we would need to break. Let's take one show,
all right, and we'll talk you about We'll talk about
porky pets right after this. Yeah, so, Chuck, the porcupines
(25:03):
have copulated. They were successful, um, and the female has
now just stated for two d and five to two
hundred seventeen days. And what did you say? We're just
born porcupets like Q T T E s. Yeah, not
pets is in something you keep. But yeah, little porcupets
(25:24):
like like the the fifties singing group Girl version of
the Porcupines, Randy Porcupine and the Porcupets right exactly. Yeah.
And here's where I got a little confusing, because I
saw different stuff depending on where I looked. And again
it may be according to species. UM. I saw that
they rarely have more than one at a time. I
(25:47):
also saw that sometimes they have up to four, but
let's just say between one and four per litter U.
And they stay with their their mommy's for a little
longer than U than why I found it says, and
I think from the San Diego Zoo just a few months.
But I also saw anywhere from twelve to twenty four months,
(26:07):
and they at least um, I need that mother's milk
for like six months. And I think it really depends
on the species. Like I saw, um, those the largest ones,
the cape porcupine, they actually stay in family units of
a mom and a dad and one to two kids,
and the dad's usually out of there with the porcupines, right.
(26:27):
So Yeah, especially with North American porcupines, I feel like
a lot because we're in America. A lot of the
info we got was for North American porcupines, and people
just called it porcupines, which required a lot more digging.
But I feel like, um, with North American porcupines, it's like, hey,
good luck with the kids. And then the mom has
(26:48):
the kid and it's like, hey, I'm weaning you. Good
luck with the rest of your life. And then they
live this kind of solitary, happy existence, digging around and
eating tree bark. Yeah. And uh, if you think the
porcupet is as soft and cute as you would imagine,
you were correct. Those needle like quills start to um
stiffen up very quickly, but it takes that. It kind
(27:10):
of starts three or four days later, and then I
imagine takes a little while to reach full you know,
kind of hard quill version. Yeah. And I saw a
conflicting information to um. I saw that they were born precocious,
where they had a full set of teeth, their eyes
were open, and then it just took a few hours
for their quills to harden into like adult um quillage.
(27:32):
That was even take to chuck. Yes, adult quillage. Thank
you for that. Yeah, whether eyes were closed for a
long time, yeah, yeah, So I don't know. It's possible
it's different species. It's also possible as San Diego Zoo
just got a bunch of stuff wrong. Well, that's always possible.
Great Zoo, I've been there. Uh. I know, we did
(27:53):
an episode on zoos and whether or not they were ethical,
So you can go make up your own mind about that.
But and there where Jack Hannah hailed from, and he
is San Diego Zoo. Guy, I feel like that's probably true. Well,
let's just say it is. I got something else on
these quills. They have an I thought we I thought
we were done with quills. I don't never done with quills.
(28:13):
They have an antiseptic quality. Apparently in case of self stabbage.
That's awesome. I hadn't seen that actually, And I think
we should say to um, just one more thing about quills.
I'm breaking my own rules here because they're like modified hair.
They grow back when they're shed. They're constantly shedding and
growing quills. Yeah. And like I said, you should not
(28:36):
approach one in the wild. But um, they make airy rabies.
But other than that, they don't really carry any other
diseases which I need. Yeah. Like if you wanted to
love porcupines anymore, there you go, Like you could snuggle
one and you don't have to worry about any diseases. Yes,
but don't eat them like they do in some parts
(28:57):
of the world. Um, they are in pretty good ape
but they have been exterminated in certain parts of Africa.
Um because they do eat root crops, so they're a
nuisance pest, so they get rid of them. People can
quillect quillect you like that. They can collect the quills
for ornamentation. Um. And I think there's a couple of
(29:19):
them that are listed as vulnerable. Uh and very sadly
of course, because their habitat is being lost. Yes, But
globally porcupines are under UM. They're considered of least concern um,
which itself is concerning because they're considered pests in a
lot of places, so they're eradicated. UM. I think it
was the Maryland d n R, the Do Not Resuscitate
(29:43):
Agency UM said that on their site that porcupines um
used to be in the southeastern United States but they
were eradicated. I didn't know that, and I've never heard that.
I couldn't find it anywhere else. But I don't know
why the d NR would make that up. I'm trying
to think if I've ever seen one in the world.
(30:03):
They do not live in the southeast. But the Maryland
d NR is saying, like I've traveled all over the world.
I'm not saying in my backyard. Oh, I got to well,
we were talking about the southeast. You can imagine why
I fell for that one. Now, I'm just trying to
think of a seen one like camping out west or anything.
I don't I don't know if I've ever seen one.
(30:24):
I never have. I would think you would definitely remember
seeing a porcupine in real life. Probably armadillos everywhere everywhere,
and you know they carry hands this disease, so don't
get close to them. Porcupines don't carry any communicable diseases
that humans are concerned about except Travis. Yeah, they can
be rabid, but all mammals can be rabbid, you know,
(30:46):
So should we talk about what happens? You know, if
you just google porcupine and dog, you're gonna get a
lot of very sad pictures of curious dogs who stuck
their snout where they shouldn't and are barbed all over
the nose and snout. Not good, no, um. And there's
(31:08):
a lot of things that you want to do and
don't want to do if that happens to your dog,
because it's actually really bad if that happens. So if
your dog, if you ever see a porcupine on a
hike with your dog, get your dog away from that porcupine,
not just for the porcupine sake. Like if a porcupine
goes into a defensive posture, it's scared to death. It's not.
(31:29):
It might seem all tough and angry. It's scared. That's
why it's doing that. But also it could really mess
your dog up. So for at least your dogs, say,
get your dog away from the porcupine. And if if
you fail to do that quickly enough and your dog
does take some quills in its face and its neck wherever. Um,
those things can because especially on in the New World
(31:52):
porcupine uh, that their quills have um barbs, they can
migrate further and further inward. Um, they're not gonna work
themselves out, They're gonna actually work themselves in. So you
want to take your dog to a vet, like you
your dog gets quilled, You get in the car, you
go to the vet. That's the order of how everything happens.
You don't stop and get a double cheeseburger. You don't
like go home and like read the paper first, Like,
(32:14):
you go straight to the vet because your dog's gonna
need to go under general anesthesia, um to to have
those things removed. That's how bad of a jam it is. Yeah,
I'm actually gonna amend that with your permission, um, because
what the first thing you should do, and hopefully you're
with someone else if you've got it. Really it would
be great if you have two people in on this,
(32:34):
one one to drive and one to keep your dog
from messing with their face. Yeah, that's a big one,
because they're gonna if there's quills poking in a dog's face,
they're gonna paw at it. They're gonna try and rub
their nose on the ground, and that is bad, bad, bad,
bad bad, because those quills are just going to go
further and further in. So you really really need to
(32:57):
do your best to hold onto your dog, hold their
head up, and keep their paws away from their face. Uh.
And like you said, go straight to that vet. Because
you don't try and remove them yourself, you're not. You're
only gonna make it worse. And that's like guaranteed. There's
also supposedly a myth that if you clip the porcupine
quill it deflates it and makes it easier to to
(33:20):
to to come out. They don't. They're not inflated with air,
so clipping it's not going to deflate anything. Yeah, and
it actually can make the quill shatter because imagine like, um,
like a really hard claw or something like that being
clipped with some scissors. It's going to shatter some um
and if if enough of the piece shutters far enough down, um,
(33:43):
it can reach the skin level. And then if it
works its way in, all of a sudden, you just
made it that much harder to get out because you
just added a new barb, which is that shattered, jagged
edge that used to be intact before you cut it
like a knucklehead. Yeah, I mean I could see the
instinct if you don't know what's going on on to
be to clip them because if they're really long and
(34:03):
sticking out of their face it looks terrible, or to
try and just put yank them out, but do not
don't do either one of those things. Um. Another big
reason why is the risk of infection is really really big. Um.
I mean, they have multiple, multiple stab wounds essentially, and they,
like you said, the only solution is general anesthesia. I
(34:24):
mean it's it's not surgery, but it's not not surgery now,
and they they you know, some of these may not
ever be able to come out, and your pets is
going to have a lifetime of being monitored to make
sure they don't migrate toward a joint or an organ
or their the back of their eye, who knows, or
depending on where they got stabbed with a quill. So UM.
(34:45):
I think it was the A s p c. A
that said the best way to to um to deal
with this is to prevent it from ever happening. Just
don't let your dog anywhere near a porcupine. It's just
not worth the risk. And don't you're're gonna scare the
porcupine too. Yeah, And if you live in porcupine country,
don't ever let your dog out of the house. No,
as a matter of fact, just keep it wrapped in
(35:07):
bubble wrapping all time. Train them. Yeah, or just change
the bubble wrapple and pee in the ball rap. Just
have to get tons and tons of bubble wrap and
then and don't throw it away, don't recycle it. Put
it in a huge pile at the end of each
season in your front yard and melt it with a blowtorch. Yeah,
(35:27):
that's great. Maybe mix it with acid tone first. Um,
I've got two more porcupine facts if you will indulge me.
Let's hear it. Do you got anything else? I got
nothing else. In the seventies, the seventies in the UK
was a swing in time for porcupines, apparently because there
was a population of Himalayan porcupines crested, I believe in
(35:53):
South Devon in the wild because they'd escaped from the
zoo sometime in the seventies and lived on the lamb
for a decade. And the same thing happened in Staffordshire
with a kind of crested porcupine where they had a
wild population because they escaped from the zoo too. Is
that near Stoke on Trent? No, no, we'll have to
(36:14):
ask Tom. All right, if that's near Stoke on Trent.
Are you got anything else again? I got nothing else? Okay,
well let's say from porcupines. Everybody go watch Teddy Bear videos.
You're gonna love them. Uh. And since I said Teddy Bears,
time for a listener, mail man. I can't wait to
turn up the volume on this. You're good. It's gonna
(36:34):
knock your socks right at all I do this. Teddy
Bear is probably on Instagram, I would imagine, but I
do follow that groundhog on Instagram. Oh, Chunk, I think
I knew. I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah, Chunk,
the groundhog gets good stuff. Yeah, alright, so here we go.
(36:54):
This is from Oh, this is from Don the Black Cowboy.
Did you see this one? Oh? Yeah, this is It's fantastic.
We did a short stuff on black cowboys in history
and how they have long been overlooked. So, for some
weird reason, you don't listen to short stuffs you should Yeah,
we never kind of promote that, but it's just like
stuff you should know, but it's shorter. Yeah, what's your problem? Listen?
(37:17):
Hey guys, my name is Don and I'm my twenty
five year old black cowboy from Texas. I, along with
my brother, am also a second generation amateur ferrier as well.
My father taught us after learning the trade growing up
on our family farm, then later going into horse shoeing
as a side career. When I saw your episode about blacksmithing,
(37:37):
I was eager to hear if you mentioned ferriers in it,
and I thought I might finally right in. Uh. Then
when you came out with a black cowboy episode, all
of my friends shared the episode with me, so I
knew I had to write. As a kid, our family
did trail rides, rodeos, and horse races nearly every weekend.
Since leaving my hometown for college and beyond, I've often
(37:58):
been uh, the first introduction to black cowboys slash farmers.
For most people. There's a large community of black cowboys
and farmers still surviving regardless of the systemic issues we face.
Whenever it's safe again, I'd like to invite anyone hearing
this out to our annual trail ride Easter weekend to
get a chance to experience the lifestyle. Am that cool? Dude?
(38:20):
I so want to do this. So he sent a
flyer too, and it looks super interesting, it does. It
looks awesome. Yeah, And so they hold it over Easter
weekend and you just basically go live the cowboy life
for a weekend. I love it. And it's like ten
bucks or something like that too. Yeah, it's not like
some city slicker scam. No, Don doesn't stick it to you.
(38:41):
Don'll give it to you straight back, straight shooter, he says.
Love the podcast really helped keep me company these last
few years in the Peace Corps. So Don is my
new most interesting man in the world. I think he
is one of the more well rounded stuff you should
know listeners we've heard from in a while. Yeah, and
he says, ps, Yes, I did ride my horse to school.
That's amazing. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, Don, Hats off
(39:03):
to you, Tan Gallon hat even literally. Um, thank you
for the invite. We may see you one of these
Easter weekends and your trail ride. Um. And if you
want to get in touch with us, you can send
us an email to the Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(39:24):
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
and this is Stuff you Should Know about porcupines, which
this is a great idea, Chuck, good job. You know
(00:26):
the porcupine. When you take away all those quills, it's
just a cute little guinea pig basically a giant one. Yeah,
a cute big guinea pig. Speaking of cute porcupines, Dude,
do you remember Teddy Bear the porcupine kind of went
a little viral a few years ago. You have to
(00:48):
watch Teddy Bear the porcupine, specifically Teddy Teddy Bear the
porcupine doesn't like to share on YouTube. And it is
this porcupine eating corn on the cop and making all
these sounds like cousin it and it is one of
the cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah,
we want to shout out Live Science, Smithsonian, Mental Floss,
(01:13):
the San Diego Zoo, and a couple of other websites
that I coupled together this wonderful bit on one of
our wonderful animal friends in the world. We'd love to
do these shows. Uh. It just made me think, have
you seen the octopus documentary thing yet? No? I haven't.
I'ven't been like kind of popping up in my in
(01:34):
my periphery. I don't really know what it is. Is
it just about OCTOPI well, it's it's called My Octopus Teacher.
I haven't seen it yet, but I just know the
the deal is this guy kind of gets to know
one octopus and that's, you know, a nice story in
suos is all. I know? That's neat. We'll have to
watch that. Yeah, I can't. I can't wait. But um,
(01:55):
and I mentioned that because you know, we've a long
said that the octopus is our favorite animal, but feel
like almost every time we've done one on an animal,
it's on something that we love. And boy do I
love the quill pig. I do too. Yeah, apparently that's
what the their Latin name means, quill pig. That is
(02:15):
fantastic um. And it turns out a chuck that there
are basically two groups that porcupines get lumped into. There's
a bunch of different gene genei yeah that's right, and
species um. But there they basically fall under two categories.
It's Old World, which is Europe, Africa, Asia, and the
New World, which is North, South and Central America. Um.
(02:39):
And if you saw a you know, porcupine in South
America and you saw one in you know, the Himalayas,
you probably would be like, that's porcupine. That's porcupine too.
They're not radically different like some Old World and New
worlds um um animals are. Yeah. But something I saw
that was interesting was that they evolved separately what one
(03:02):
of those what is it called co evolutions or whatever. No,
I didn't see that. That's that is crazy. I saw that,
and I only saw it in one place, So I
think that might have been a personal hypothesis as somebody
who got them maybe website. I saw it somewhere though. Uh.
And then the two actually, um, the Old World in
(03:24):
the New World have less in common than they do
individually with like some other rodents in their area. Yeah,
so I'm actually not surprised to hear that. But the
one thing that they do have in common across the
board is that they have quills, and that they use
their quills defensively. Now what their quills look like, um,
(03:45):
how they use their quills. Um. There's a lot of
other distinctions and differences between Old World and New World,
but they all have quilts. They're all porcupines. That seems
to be the thing that that binds them. It's the
tie that binds that family. Yeah, and it's just it's
easy to take the porcupine for granted, I think, and
just say, yeah, that the little animal with all those quills.
(04:06):
But when you take a step back and look at
it and think about the evolution of the porcupine, that uh,
like I said, it's sort of would be a very large,
sort of cute, little fluffy guinea pig, but it probably
got eaten a lot um and then you know, they
said nuts to this nature steps in. It's like, all right,
(04:28):
how about this. What if we were just animal pincushions
such that if he came anywhere near us, you would
be stabbed repeatedly if you tried to eat us. Like,
It's one of the most amazing evolutionary adaptations I've ever seen. Yeah,
and I mean they they can really use those things too. Um.
(04:48):
There's a longstanding myth that they can shoot them, which
is not true. But apparently even Aristotle fell for that one.
And what a dummy. But they can use them in
some pretty interesting way. And you hit the nail on
the head when you said, you know, step back if
you see a porcupine, that is good advice. You should
probably step back because depending on these the species, or
(05:11):
whether it's Old World or New World, those quills can
mess you up pretty good. Yeah. But also you know,
get nearby and take a look, like they're not going
to come after you. That porcupine is a very kind
hearted animal and those are for defense. A porcupine is
never going to charge you and you know, leap at
(05:32):
your belly to to put quills all in your stomach. Um,
So take a little look, admire it for what it is. UM.
I think you know, to talk about porcupine is a
lot of this is talking about the Old World versus
the Rush version. Yeah, so the big differences that I saw, UM,
(05:52):
And there's lots of differences between different species within each
of these groups, but the Old World versus New World
has some big differences between a UM, and one of
them is that Old World are typically terrestrial porcupines. They
spend most of their lives on the ground. UM. They
live in burrows or caves, or rock dens and New
World porcupines they live on the ground too. They live
(06:15):
in burrows, but they're also very capable of climbing trees. UM,
and they'll they'll spend a significant amount of time and
sometimes nest in trees. And there are some species that
spend virtually their whole lives and trees, almost like sloths. Yeah. UM.
Quill wise, uh, the New World porcupines quills are going
to be shorter and smaller in general. I think they're
(06:37):
about four to ten four inches ten centimeters UM. The
Old World dudes and ladies they can get very long.
They can have quills up to twenty inches long. UM.
They can be marked with UM black and white bands.
And what they can do is these Old World guys
can puff them up UM, so they stand up and
(06:58):
are more intimidating and look Also. I mean it's weird
because it's it's like multi fuld like four or five
different things they do. By doing this, they look larger,
So that's always something that UM vulnerable animals try to
do in the wild. They look like a skunk a
little bit because of the black and white marking down
their back. They actually have a defensive musk kind of
(07:21):
like a a skunk, but just not nearly as bad. Yeah,
So they try to imitate a skunk a little bit. Um,
they look bigger, they they rattle. They can shake those
things and rattle them, which is another great adaptation to say,
like get away from me and don't try and eat me.
And supposedly that works pretty well too. Yeah, totally. And
then if all else fails, they're stabby. They are stabby.
(07:44):
So um. Sometimes the old world ones will actually charge
backwards toward a predator if they're feeling like they want
to stand their ground. Um. And that's usually when they're
caught out in the open. If they have a place
to hide, they'll stick their head in that used to
hide and then puff out their quills and make themselves
hard to get at. Um. But if they're on the open,
(08:06):
they may decide that they're going to fight off this
predator and they'll charge backward. And one other adaptation I
saw which I thought was was awesome. They'll have the
predator chase it and then they'll stop all of a sudden,
and the predator will run into them in their quills
for real, and then you hear the sound effect. Yeah,
exactly and then it's too late. Yeah. I mean it's
(08:28):
interesting because those quills, even though they puff them out,
they are pointed generally in the reverse direction, which you know,
which is why they have to back up into something
to to quill them or like you said, bury them.
Just throw on that that parking break real quick, and
all of a sudden, that fox has got a faceful
of quill. Right. So that Old world UM contains a
(08:51):
couple of species that are called crested porcupines, and they
basically look like if the quills were like an umbrella
open at the back of their head and just kind
of sticks out like that, and like you said, it
makes them look a lot bigger. They're a lot more dangerous. Um.
The big difference with quills between the Old World and
the New World, in addition to being shorter, is um
(09:15):
Old world porcupines are covered in quills. That's all they have.
Like they have Like I don't know if we said
or not, but quills are just modified hair. Um, They're
made of caratin. They're they're just like hair. They're just
ways stabbier than hair that you and I have, meats, fingernails. Basically, Yeah,
that's a great way to put it. And Old World
porcupines that's all they have our quills UM. New World
(09:38):
porcupines have quills that are also mixed in with um
fur like an undercoat, longer hairs UM, and their quills
kind of stand up and are are used for defense.
That's not just it's not all that they have UM.
And the other thing about their quills is that they
have little barbs, and New World um porcupines barbs make
(09:59):
the New World quails way more dangerous than Old World quils. Yeah.
It's like a little fishhook basically, and it'll instead of
just poking right into you, it'll actually snag in your
flesh and makes it, like you said, way way tougher
to get out. UM. Much harder time removing a New
World quill than an Old World quill. But those New
(10:20):
World guys are uh because their quills start further back.
You get the feeling if you just and I wouldn't
recommend this, but if you just go very gently and
just say, hey, little guy, you never do that. I
just I just want to give you a scritch under
the under the chin, and I think you might enjoy it.
(10:40):
And I'm gonna move very slowly, just don't turn around,
and you'll you'll have a really good time. I'd like
to include a disclaimer here, don't do it. You guys
should not listen to Chuck right now. He's doling out
some really terrible advice. Yeah, it's just because those quills
start further back. They got that cute little head and face,
and it just makes you want to give him a scratch. Yeah, no, totally.
(11:04):
Like if you watch Teddy Teddy Bear videos, um, Teddy
Bear the porcupine, you will want to go get one
as a pet. There's another one I saw called Diva,
and she's a baby porcupine. She's adorable. Um, yeah, you
totally want to do that. And I'm sure there are
ways to handle them. But I also saw, you know,
one of those zoo guys on a late night talk
show and he had I think an African crested porcupine
(11:27):
on his lap and that thing was not at all
worried or scared or um in any sort of defense mode.
And that dude was in pain just letting this thing
sit on his lap because I don't know. You said,
you know, they look like guinea pigs, and I said,
overgrown guinea pigs. Some of these things can get really big.
There's a cape porcupine. I think it's the biggest one.
They get up to like sixty five pounds. Sixty pounds
(11:50):
is like a large dog and with quills though, with
the quills puffed up. No, like there's sixty five pounds,
you're sound. And then but imagine a sixty five pound
dog with those quills. That's that's dangerous. Yeah, what I meant.
I know they don't actually weigh more when they puff up,
but they can when they put those quills out, they
(12:11):
can look two to three times their size. So yeah,
imagine that thing looks enormous. And actually I don't do
this much, but I'm watching that that thing eat that
corn on the cob right now. Isn't that adorable? Yeah,
I have to have the sound down, so I'm gonna
go back and watch it. You have to hear the sound,
like the sound does it. But even without the sound,
he's just awfully cute. Yeah, it kind of They kind
(12:32):
of look like beavers a little bit too, and they
are related as fellow rodents. Um here, I think we
should take a break. So I'm getting kind of worked
up here, and we'll come back and talk more about
these cute little stabby suckers right after this. Okay, Charles,
(13:05):
we're back, and um, we've been talking mostly about quills. Yeah,
so one more thing about quills, and there's going to
be more than one more thing about quils, let's be honest.
But we said they couldn't shoot them. What they can do?
These things do fall out just like hair, and they
grow just like fingernails and will eventually fall so when
they shake, they if they have loose quills, they can
(13:28):
fly off. But they're still not like shooting, like Aristotle said,
like deadly needle darts. No, but they can be problematic,
like these things can puncture the sidewalls of tires. I
was reading them the blog of some tire company K
A L. Tires I think up in the Yukon, and
(13:48):
they said that it's actually it can be a problem
like on some roads. Yeah that if you're out in
the middle of nowhere and you run over a porcupine quill,
you're you're you're probably going to get a flat. That's
how I thinks. Tough those things are. Well, that's sad.
What for your tire, no for the for your afternoon? Well, No,
you're not running over Are you still watching Teddy Bear videos? No?
(14:11):
I thought you said if you run over a porcupine,
it can fine quill. Oh, well, being what is it?
Just a loose quill on the road. Yeah, exactly, that's
what I'm saying, Like just a loose quill laying on
the road. If you run over it goes into your sidewall,
You're probably going to get a flat tire. That's how
tough those things are. Okay, I thought you meant if
you actually run over a porcupine and you have like
a bunch of quills, I that would probably do it too,
(14:32):
especially if the porcupine was in a defensive procedure. But
the porcupine doesn't have to die in this case for
you to go flat tire. So regardless of that sadness
they there is sadness and that despite this great adaptation
and this great defense mechanism, they still can be hunted.
Um lions can still hunt them human people. There's the
(14:54):
bush meat trade for the old world porcupines that is
you know, just you know what that means. Uh, And
they're you know, they're owls, wolverines, pythons. Uh. There's something
called a fisher that looks sort of like a a weasel, bear,
fox or something. Did you pack that thing up? Yeah,
I think it's related to otters and weasels. Okay, but
(15:16):
it had a sort of a bear face. It was interesting.
But apparently stink too. Well. They stink in more ways
than one because they learned to flip these porcupines over
where they have that soft belly meat and no quills
as a way to attack them, which really makes me mad. Yeah,
I don't. I don't like fishers for that reason either.
I've never heard of them until recently, until we started
(15:38):
researching this, and I had neither. I don't like them.
I just don't like them. Eat something else, Yeah, leave
the porcupines alone, because they're actually pretty nice. Yeah, and
they don't eat what do they eat? They eat vegetables
and fruits and berries and nuts and tubers and roots. Yeah,
so um, they eat all those things. They'll also eat
(15:59):
crow ops, which is um. Porcupines are considered a nuisance,
especially if you're a farmer or even a gardener in
the suburbs, because they will eat your root vegetables. They
will eat corn um love corn apparently um. But they'll
also They have another thing too, where they need sodium
in their diet. They actually need they need a pretty
(16:22):
um even ratio of one to one of potassium to
sodium for their electrical conductivity in their body to work.
But they don't get much sodium in their diet. Um
Plants have lots of potassium, not much sodium, so they
have to go find it elsewhere. And it turns out
we humans have a lot of stuff that has sodium
in it. Apparently plywood glue contains a lot of sodium,
(16:46):
so they love eating wood structures we build out of plywood.
Um the salt that we put on the roads gets
kicked up on the underside of our car, So you
might find a porcupine chewing on the tie ears or
the hoses or belts or wires under your car. Yeah,
well that they would even because the humans sweat so
(17:08):
much salt when they're working that they'll go Like if
you have some some wooden pruners in your shed, they'll
go in there and they'll start eating the handle of
your pruners because it just has a residual human salt
left over on it. Right, you just walk in, You're like,
are you nuts? What is wrong with you, you porcupine
for those fellas, Yeah, well they'll find anywhere they can
(17:31):
find a natural salt, like they'll definitely eat that too.
But yes, anything that has human sweat on, even trace
amounts of human sweat, they'll go bonkers, like they eat
oars um, paddles, that kind of stuff. So but yes,
typically they eat um leaves, stems, they eat shoots and
leaves um. They also, though, and this is another reason
(17:53):
why they're considered a nuisance, they eat the bark off
the tree, so they're considered generalists. They'll eat just about
any kind of veget tatian um, which is actually they're
also super adaptable, which is why you'll find porcupines almost
anywhere there's vegetation um. But they they'll that's what they eat,
you know, spring, summer, fall, and then in winter. They
(18:13):
don't hibernate, which actually makes them kind of unusual as well.
But they they go from being um generalists to what's
known as um faculative specialists, meaning their diet becomes very
limited to just one or two types of trees, and
not just one or two types of trees. During the winter,
they may just feed on the inner bark of one tree,
(18:37):
and that can be problematic because the inner bark is
where nutrients and water moves from the roots to the
rest of the tree. And if that porcupine eats all
the way around it, what's called girdling a tree, it
can kill or seriously damage that tree. Yeah. So if
I mean, if you have a problem if you live
in the woods and stuff, and you see a tree,
(18:58):
it could be a beaver. But either way, you kind
of hand all the same. You can wrap like chicken
wire around it around the bottom, or some sort of
um aluminum or something cheating to keep the the beaver
and or porcupine from non on that thing. Yeah, and
I would guess you'd want to wear work gloves because
the salt from your hands is just gonna attract into
(19:18):
that chicken wire. Uh. Yeah, they eat. They're nocturnal, so
they're mainly doing this stuff at night. They're patrolling around,
they're defending their areas that they feed. I saw both.
I saw that their territorial I saw that they're also
not territorial. Yeah, it probably depends with you know, so
many different species because they will travel outside their home
(19:40):
range if they want to get a mate um or
if they need that salt. They're usually uh, they're fairly
solo flyers, although um, sometimes you'll see a couple of them.
Uh they may be made it, they may be siblings. Um.
I don't think we mentioned that. The Old World. Uh,
porcupines are actually a good swimmers, both of them are
(20:02):
for from what I understand. Oh really, m m okay. Yeah,
and New World will actually go swim out to gather
aquatic plants. They swim more than the Old World does.
But they just swim to collect plants and then they
bring it back to the shore to eat. Yeah. And
they're they're living in they don't they'll like sleep in
trees sometimes the climbers will. But uh, it seems like
(20:24):
they make use of other animals dens when they're not
around and they have left, Like they'll go to an
art vark den that has been abandoned or a hole
and they will change it around, maybe knocked down some walls,
open up that floor plan. So island in the kitchen, Yeah,
of course, gotta have the big island and then you know,
(20:46):
they they'll just adapt it to their needs because obviously
they're a little puffier than the ard vark. Yeah. And
in doing so, Chuck, A question that I kept running
up against was what role did porcupines play in the ecosystem?
And they think that one of the big roles they
played by basically disturbing stuff. They disturbed the soil when
they're when they're digging and burrowing and everything. Interesting. They
(21:09):
they found that they the through that they propagate way
more seeds than than would otherwise be propagated if they
weren't around. So forests are much more diverse with them
in it than without them because of all of their
scratching and moving and all that stuff. Yeah, and it
seems like for rodents they live a long time. They
(21:31):
can live and they I mean I sort of saw
a wild range anywhere from three to five years in
the wild to like ten years in the wild. I
saw one that lived to be eighteen. I saw the
record was five, which I think was second only two
a beaver as far as the rodent record. I think
there was a twenty eight year old beaver once I
(21:53):
saw one in Brazil was can live up to twenty
seven years in captivity. Yeah, so that's I mean, that's
long lived. But yeah, I saw three to five years too.
I guess it just depends on the species, you know. Yeah,
And the other thing about their feeding habits is they
eat seasonally, right, they're little hipsters. They eat seasonally and locally,
(22:17):
So depending on what's there, they will I think in
the winter they'll eat more evergreen needles and the like,
sort of the inner bark of the trees and stuff
like that. And then you know, when those sweet berries
come around or when that corn crop is coming in,
just look out. Then they turned back into generalists. That's right. So, um,
(22:37):
I feel like we cannot go any further, can't dance
around the fact that porcupines copulate um, and when they
do copulate, they produce offspring, and we should talk about that. Yeah,
should we break or should we do this and then break?
I feel like we're gonna need to take a break
(22:59):
after this. Okay. So porcupines have stabby quills. That's that
point backwards, that's right. And if you know how a
rodent in a mammal like this would have sex, it
is from something a male approaching the female from the rear. Yeah,
(23:19):
right where those things are pointing. And so you think,
how do they do this? What happens is the males
are gonna Um, they're gonna vie for the female. Like
so many animals, they have these sort of noisy battles
and they they whine and they stomp when they win
and stomp their tail and try to impress the lady,
puff their quills out. And if the lady says, all right,
(23:41):
I think you might be a good match for me,
what does he do? He sprays urine all over her.
That's right, and she goes, She goes, that was wonderful. Um,
let's go a big boy. Yeah, I'm gonna put down
I'm gonna lay down my quills. Yeah, and move the
(24:01):
tail to the side. It's a business time, right, Yeah,
because the tail is barbed. I don't think we said
that either. No, but like all the quills are barbed, right, Well, no,
I think the actual tail is barbed. Oh good lord
as well, which you can help with the climbing and stuff. Right.
So I think it would take being sprayed with your
into two. You would want to reach that level of
(24:24):
commitment to make sure that you could trust that that
barbed tail is going to be kept to the side.
Are we in? Right? And then yes that that definitely
says yes you're in. Um, you're in get it. I
told you we would need to break. Let's take one show,
all right, and we'll talk you about We'll talk about
porky pets right after this. Yeah, so, Chuck, the porcupines
(25:03):
have copulated. They were successful, um, and the female has
now just stated for two d and five to two
hundred seventeen days. And what did you say? We're just
born porcupets like Q T T E s. Yeah, not
pets is in something you keep. But yeah, little porcupets
(25:24):
like like the the fifties singing group Girl version of
the Porcupines, Randy Porcupine and the Porcupets right exactly. Yeah.
And here's where I got a little confusing, because I
saw different stuff depending on where I looked. And again
it may be according to species. UM. I saw that
they rarely have more than one at a time. I
(25:47):
also saw that sometimes they have up to four, but
let's just say between one and four per litter U.
And they stay with their their mommy's for a little
longer than U than why I found it says, and
I think from the San Diego Zoo just a few months.
But I also saw anywhere from twelve to twenty four months,
(26:07):
and they at least um, I need that mother's milk
for like six months. And I think it really depends
on the species. Like I saw, um, those the largest ones,
the cape porcupine, they actually stay in family units of
a mom and a dad and one to two kids,
and the dad's usually out of there with the porcupines, right.
(26:27):
So Yeah, especially with North American porcupines, I feel like
a lot because we're in America. A lot of the
info we got was for North American porcupines, and people
just called it porcupines, which required a lot more digging.
But I feel like, um, with North American porcupines, it's like, hey,
good luck with the kids. And then the mom has
(26:48):
the kid and it's like, hey, I'm weaning you. Good
luck with the rest of your life. And then they
live this kind of solitary, happy existence, digging around and
eating tree bark. Yeah. And uh, if you think the
porcupet is as soft and cute as you would imagine,
you were correct. Those needle like quills start to um
stiffen up very quickly, but it takes that. It kind
(27:10):
of starts three or four days later, and then I
imagine takes a little while to reach full you know,
kind of hard quill version. Yeah. And I saw a
conflicting information to um. I saw that they were born precocious,
where they had a full set of teeth, their eyes
were open, and then it just took a few hours
for their quills to harden into like adult um quillage.
(27:32):
That was even take to chuck. Yes, adult quillage. Thank
you for that. Yeah, whether eyes were closed for a
long time, yeah, yeah, So I don't know. It's possible
it's different species. It's also possible as San Diego Zoo
just got a bunch of stuff wrong. Well, that's always possible.
Great Zoo, I've been there. Uh. I know, we did
(27:53):
an episode on zoos and whether or not they were ethical,
So you can go make up your own mind about that.
But and there where Jack Hannah hailed from, and he
is San Diego Zoo. Guy, I feel like that's probably true. Well,
let's just say it is. I got something else on
these quills. They have an I thought we I thought
we were done with quills. I don't never done with quills.
(28:13):
They have an antiseptic quality. Apparently in case of self stabbage.
That's awesome. I hadn't seen that actually, And I think
we should say to um, just one more thing about quills.
I'm breaking my own rules here because they're like modified hair.
They grow back when they're shed. They're constantly shedding and
growing quills. Yeah. And like I said, you should not
(28:36):
approach one in the wild. But um, they make airy rabies.
But other than that, they don't really carry any other
diseases which I need. Yeah. Like if you wanted to
love porcupines anymore, there you go, Like you could snuggle
one and you don't have to worry about any diseases. Yes,
but don't eat them like they do in some parts
(28:57):
of the world. Um, they are in pretty good ape
but they have been exterminated in certain parts of Africa.
Um because they do eat root crops, so they're a
nuisance pest, so they get rid of them. People can
quillect quillect you like that. They can collect the quills
for ornamentation. Um. And I think there's a couple of
(29:19):
them that are listed as vulnerable. Uh and very sadly
of course, because their habitat is being lost. Yes, But
globally porcupines are under UM. They're considered of least concern um,
which itself is concerning because they're considered pests in a
lot of places, so they're eradicated. UM. I think it
was the Maryland d n R, the Do Not Resuscitate
(29:43):
Agency UM said that on their site that porcupines um
used to be in the southeastern United States but they
were eradicated. I didn't know that, and I've never heard that.
I couldn't find it anywhere else. But I don't know
why the d NR would make that up. I'm trying
to think if I've ever seen one in the world.
(30:03):
They do not live in the southeast. But the Maryland
d NR is saying, like I've traveled all over the world.
I'm not saying in my backyard. Oh, I got to well,
we were talking about the southeast. You can imagine why
I fell for that one. Now, I'm just trying to
think of a seen one like camping out west or anything.
I don't I don't know if I've ever seen one.
(30:24):
I never have. I would think you would definitely remember
seeing a porcupine in real life. Probably armadillos everywhere everywhere,
and you know they carry hands this disease, so don't
get close to them. Porcupines don't carry any communicable diseases
that humans are concerned about except Travis. Yeah, they can
be rabid, but all mammals can be rabbid, you know,
(30:46):
So should we talk about what happens? You know, if
you just google porcupine and dog, you're gonna get a
lot of very sad pictures of curious dogs who stuck
their snout where they shouldn't and are barbed all over
the nose and snout. Not good, no, um. And there's
(31:08):
a lot of things that you want to do and
don't want to do if that happens to your dog,
because it's actually really bad if that happens. So if
your dog, if you ever see a porcupine on a
hike with your dog, get your dog away from that porcupine,
not just for the porcupine sake. Like if a porcupine
goes into a defensive posture, it's scared to death. It's not.
(31:29):
It might seem all tough and angry. It's scared. That's
why it's doing that. But also it could really mess
your dog up. So for at least your dogs, say,
get your dog away from the porcupine. And if if
you fail to do that quickly enough and your dog
does take some quills in its face and its neck wherever. Um,
those things can because especially on in the New World
(31:52):
porcupine uh, that their quills have um barbs, they can
migrate further and further inward. Um, they're not gonna work
themselves out, They're gonna actually work themselves in. So you
want to take your dog to a vet, like you
your dog gets quilled, You get in the car, you
go to the vet. That's the order of how everything happens.
You don't stop and get a double cheeseburger. You don't
like go home and like read the paper first, Like,
(32:14):
you go straight to the vet because your dog's gonna
need to go under general anesthesia, um to to have
those things removed. That's how bad of a jam it is. Yeah,
I'm actually gonna amend that with your permission, um, because
what the first thing you should do, and hopefully you're
with someone else if you've got it. Really it would
be great if you have two people in on this,
(32:34):
one one to drive and one to keep your dog
from messing with their face. Yeah, that's a big one,
because they're gonna if there's quills poking in a dog's face,
they're gonna paw at it. They're gonna try and rub
their nose on the ground, and that is bad, bad, bad,
bad bad, because those quills are just going to go
further and further in. So you really really need to
(32:57):
do your best to hold onto your dog, hold their
head up, and keep their paws away from their face. Uh.
And like you said, go straight to that vet. Because
you don't try and remove them yourself, you're not. You're
only gonna make it worse. And that's like guaranteed. There's
also supposedly a myth that if you clip the porcupine
quill it deflates it and makes it easier to to
(33:20):
to to come out. They don't. They're not inflated with air,
so clipping it's not going to deflate anything. Yeah, and
it actually can make the quill shatter because imagine like, um,
like a really hard claw or something like that being
clipped with some scissors. It's going to shatter some um
and if if enough of the piece shutters far enough down, um,
(33:43):
it can reach the skin level. And then if it
works its way in, all of a sudden, you just
made it that much harder to get out because you
just added a new barb, which is that shattered, jagged
edge that used to be intact before you cut it
like a knucklehead. Yeah, I mean I could see the
instinct if you don't know what's going on on to
be to clip them because if they're really long and
(34:03):
sticking out of their face it looks terrible, or to
try and just put yank them out, but do not
don't do either one of those things. Um. Another big
reason why is the risk of infection is really really big. Um.
I mean, they have multiple, multiple stab wounds essentially, and they,
like you said, the only solution is general anesthesia. I
(34:24):
mean it's it's not surgery, but it's not not surgery now,
and they they you know, some of these may not
ever be able to come out, and your pets is
going to have a lifetime of being monitored to make
sure they don't migrate toward a joint or an organ
or their the back of their eye, who knows, or
depending on where they got stabbed with a quill. So UM.
(34:45):
I think it was the A s p c. A
that said the best way to to um to deal
with this is to prevent it from ever happening. Just
don't let your dog anywhere near a porcupine. It's just
not worth the risk. And don't you're're gonna scare the
porcupine too. Yeah, And if you live in porcupine country,
don't ever let your dog out of the house. No,
as a matter of fact, just keep it wrapped in
(35:07):
bubble wrapping all time. Train them. Yeah, or just change
the bubble wrapple and pee in the ball rap. Just
have to get tons and tons of bubble wrap and
then and don't throw it away, don't recycle it. Put
it in a huge pile at the end of each
season in your front yard and melt it with a blowtorch. Yeah,
(35:27):
that's great. Maybe mix it with acid tone first. Um,
I've got two more porcupine facts if you will indulge me.
Let's hear it. Do you got anything else? I got
nothing else. In the seventies, the seventies in the UK
was a swing in time for porcupines, apparently because there
was a population of Himalayan porcupines crested, I believe in
(35:53):
South Devon in the wild because they'd escaped from the
zoo sometime in the seventies and lived on the lamb
for a decade. And the same thing happened in Staffordshire
with a kind of crested porcupine where they had a
wild population because they escaped from the zoo too. Is
that near Stoke on Trent? No, no, we'll have to
(36:14):
ask Tom. All right, if that's near Stoke on Trent.
Are you got anything else again? I got nothing else? Okay,
well let's say from porcupines. Everybody go watch Teddy Bear videos.
You're gonna love them. Uh. And since I said Teddy Bears,
time for a listener, mail man. I can't wait to
turn up the volume on this. You're good. It's gonna
(36:34):
knock your socks right at all I do this. Teddy
Bear is probably on Instagram, I would imagine, but I
do follow that groundhog on Instagram. Oh, Chunk, I think
I knew. I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah, Chunk,
the groundhog gets good stuff. Yeah, alright, so here we go.
(36:54):
This is from Oh, this is from Don the Black Cowboy.
Did you see this one? Oh? Yeah, this is It's fantastic.
We did a short stuff on black cowboys in history
and how they have long been overlooked. So, for some
weird reason, you don't listen to short stuffs you should Yeah,
we never kind of promote that, but it's just like
stuff you should know, but it's shorter. Yeah, what's your problem? Listen?
(37:17):
Hey guys, my name is Don and I'm my twenty
five year old black cowboy from Texas. I, along with
my brother, am also a second generation amateur ferrier as well.
My father taught us after learning the trade growing up
on our family farm, then later going into horse shoeing
as a side career. When I saw your episode about blacksmithing,
(37:37):
I was eager to hear if you mentioned ferriers in it,
and I thought I might finally right in. Uh. Then
when you came out with a black cowboy episode, all
of my friends shared the episode with me, so I
knew I had to write. As a kid, our family
did trail rides, rodeos, and horse races nearly every weekend.
Since leaving my hometown for college and beyond, I've often
(37:58):
been uh, the first introduction to black cowboys slash farmers.
For most people. There's a large community of black cowboys
and farmers still surviving regardless of the systemic issues we face.
Whenever it's safe again, I'd like to invite anyone hearing
this out to our annual trail ride Easter weekend to
get a chance to experience the lifestyle. Am that cool? Dude?
(38:20):
I so want to do this. So he sent a
flyer too, and it looks super interesting, it does. It
looks awesome. Yeah, And so they hold it over Easter
weekend and you just basically go live the cowboy life
for a weekend. I love it. And it's like ten
bucks or something like that too. Yeah, it's not like
some city slicker scam. No, Don doesn't stick it to you.
(38:41):
Don'll give it to you straight back, straight shooter, he says.
Love the podcast really helped keep me company these last
few years in the Peace Corps. So Don is my
new most interesting man in the world. I think he
is one of the more well rounded stuff you should
know listeners we've heard from in a while. Yeah, and
he says, ps, Yes, I did ride my horse to school.
That's amazing. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, Don, Hats off
(39:03):
to you, Tan Gallon hat even literally. Um, thank you
for the invite. We may see you one of these
Easter weekends and your trail ride. Um. And if you
want to get in touch with us, you can send
us an email to the Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(39:24):
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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