New World porcupine
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Erethizon |
The New World porcupines are large terrestrial rodents, distinguished by their spiny covering from which they take their name. They are all stout animals, with blunt rounded heads, fleshy mobile snouts, and coats of thick cylindrical or flattened spines ("quills").
The porcupines are represented in the New World by the members of the family Erethizontidae, which have rooted molars, complete collar-bones, entire upper lips, tuberculated soles, no trace of a first front-toe, and four teats. The spines are mixed with long soft hairs.
They are less strictly nocturnal than Old World species in their habits, and some types live entirely in trees while others have dens on the ground, their long and powerful prehensile tails help them balance when they are in the tree tops.
They include three genera, of which the first is represented by the Canadian Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum), a stout, heavily built animal, with long hairs almost or quite hiding its spines, four front- and five hind-toes, and a short, stumpy tail. It is a native of the greater part of Canada and the United States, wherever there is any remnant of the original forest left.
The tree porcupines (Coendou, Sphiggurus, and Echinoprocta) contain 15 species. They are found throughout tropical South America, with one extending into Mexico. They are of a lighter build than the ground porcupines, with short, close, many-coloured spines, often mixed with hairs, and prehensile tails. The hind-feet have only four toes, owing to the suppression of the first, in place of which they have a fleshy pad on the inner side of the foot; between this pad and the toes, branches and other objects can be firmly grasped as with a hand.
Genus Chaetomys, distinguished by the shape of its skull and the greater complexity of its teeth, contains C. subspinosus, a native of the hottest parts of Brazil. This animal is often considered a member of the Echimyidae on the basis of its premolar.
[edit] Species
- Family Erethizontidae
- Subfamily Erethizontinae
- North American Porcupine - Erethizon dorsatum
- Tree porcupines (sometimes united in a single genus Coendou)
- Coendou - prehensile-tailed porcupines
- Coendou bicolor - Bicolor-spined Porcupine
- Coendou nycthemera - Koopman's Porcupine
- Coendou prehensilis - Brazilian Porcupine
- Coendou rothschildi - Rothschild's Porcupine
- Stump-tailed Porcupine - Echinoprocta rufescens
- Sphiggurus - dwarf porcupines
- Sphiggurus ichillus - Long-tailed Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus insidiosus - Bahia Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus melanurus - Black-tailed Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus mexicanus - Mexican Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus paragayensis - Paraguay Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus pruinosus - Frosted Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus quichua - Quichua Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus roosmalenorum - Van Roosmalens's Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus spinosus - Orange-spined Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Sphiggurus vestitus - Brown Hairy Dwarf Porcupine
- Coendou - prehensile-tailed porcupines
- Subfamily Chaetomyinae
- Bristle-spined Porcupine - Chaetomys subspinosus
- Subfamily Erethizontinae
