Surely a porcupine’s prickly quills would put off a hungry predator? Not necessarily says Stuart Blackman <\/p>
Porcupine quills present an impenetrable thicket to most predators. But these backward-pointing defences are only effective if the rodent can keep its assailant to its rear.<\/p>\n
In North America, pumas<\/a><\/strong> and fishers (marten-like mammals) are skilled porcupine predators, outmanoeuvring their quarry to launch their attacks from the front, or flipping the animal over to expose its soft underbelly.<\/p>\n Strangely, many snakes cannot resist a porcupine, even though they can be mortally wounded by the quills at the point of swallowing.<\/p>\n There is evidence, too, that porcupine-related injuries can turn lions<\/a><\/strong>, particularly young males, into man-eaters, if either the wound or resulting infection prevents them from hunting their usual prey.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Main image: Brazilian porcupine. \u00a9 Ted Adams \/ Getty Images<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Surely a porcupine’s prickly quills would put off a hungry predator? Not necessarily says Stuart Blackman <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":28785,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines.jpg",1599,1066,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/05\/does-anything-eat-porcupines.jpg",1599,1066,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Surely a porcupine's prickly quills would put off a hungry predator? Not necessarily says Stuart Blackman","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/28784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Also may like:<\/h4>\n
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