What’s the Distinction: Echidnas, Hedgehogs and Porcupines

Nobody likes to be labeled, particularly when it’s the improper label. And the echidnas of southern Australia, aren’t any completely different. Don’t name them porcupines, please! And don’t even suppose about referring to at least one as a “hedgehog.” These spiny anteaters native to this Down Underneath vacation spot are pleased with their distinctive identify.

“However,” you say, “they give the impression of being a lot like hedgehogs and porcupines. What’s the distinction?”

On behalf of the spiky, slow-moving echidna, we’re revealing not solely the traits that set all of those spiny creatures aside, but in addition the place on the planet you possibly can see every one with Nat Hab.

Get to Know the Echidna

The very first thing you’ll discover about an echidna is its spines. These spikes are literally lengthy (as much as 5 inches), powerful, hole hair follicles. Echidnas use them in protection in opposition to predators, rolling up right into a ball of radiating spines when one approaches. Additionally they use the claws on their hind limbs to dig themselves out of hazard.

Echidnas are small creatures, and these twin defensive mechanisms are essential to their survival. They develop wherever from 14 to 30 inches lengthy and weigh 5.5 to 22 kilos.

Not all echidna spines are created equal. The echidnas you would possibly see on Nat Hab’s Australia South: Tasmania, Kangaroo Island & the Nice Ocean Street journey have a lot darker spines than these within the japanese states akin to Queensland. Over there, echidnas have a lot lighter spines that look a bit like blonde highlights. And on Kangaroo Island, you’ll see pure white and even some red-headed echidnas.

Tasmania, Australia.

Should you go to Australia between mid-Might and early September, you may even see one of many echidnas’ most attention-grabbing behaviors: the mating prepare. Throughout the breeding season, a feminine will lead the prepare, adopted by as much as ten male echidnas, with a smaller, youthful male on the finish of the road. The males comply with go well with over lengthy distances till the feminine is able to mate.

South Bruny Nationwide Park, Tasmania.

Right here’s one other defining characteristic of the echidna: Together with the platypus, they’re the one egg-laying mammal species. A couple of month after mating, the feminine lays a single, soft-shelled, leathery egg into her pouch. Simply ten days later, a child echidna hatches! And get this—the child echidnas are referred to as “puggles.” Have you ever ever heard something cuter?

Though the gestation interval is temporary, the puggles keep in a den with Mama for a couple of 12 months earlier than venturing out alone.

Brief-beaked echidna puggle © Ian R McCann, Museums Victoria Collections

Echidnas have brief beaks that you simply would possibly suppose home sharp tooth. However no, there’s a motive they’re additionally known as “spiny anteaters.” They don’t have any tooth in any respect, however they do have lengthy, sticky tongues—as much as 6 inches lengthy. Their fast tongues are perfect for slurping up ants, worms, termites and bug larvae.

Enjoyable truth: The scientific identify for the echidna, Tachyglossus, means “quick tongue.”

The place Can I See Echidnas?

Echidnas stay solely in Australia and New Guinea. Of the native Australian mammals, they’ve the widest distribution all through the continent’s geographical panorama. Echidnas desire alpine meadows, coastal forests and inside deserts.

An echidna photographed by a Nat Hab Expedition Chief in Tasmania © Mike Hillman

Take a look at echidnas first-hand on Nat Hab’s South Australia journey. Identified for its pristine seashores and native wines, Kangaroo Island—Australia’s third largest island—is house not solely to echidnas, but in addition kangaroos, wallabies, New Zealand fur seals, Australian sea lions and one of many continent’s largest koala populations.

Our South Australia journey additionally features a stroll with a researcher who’s a world knowledgeable on the short-beaked echidna.

One other enjoyable truth: This historical egg-laying mammal as soon as roamed with dinosaurs!

We additionally cease at Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve close to Warrnambool on the mainland, the place you discover echidnas, koalas, emus, turtles, possums, swans, blue wrens and, sure, kangaroos and wallabies. Tower Hill is a part of an Aboriginal Cultural Panorama and is house to a few of Australia’s best-loved wildlife residing inside the massive crater of this dormant volcano close to the Nice Ocean Street.

We additionally go to Tasmania, the place we’ll see extra echidnas, in addition to pademelons and wombats close to one in every of our lodges on the sting of Cradle Mountain Nationwide Park and inside the Derwent Valley, the place we keep for 2 nights.

Are Echidnas Threatened or Endangered?

Brief reply: It is dependent upon the echidna species. The Sir David’s long-beaked echidna and the western long-beaked echidna are each on the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature’s record of critically endangered animals. The japanese long-beaked echidna is on the record of weak species. Against this, the short-beaked echidna is taken into account a species of “Least Concern” by the IUCN.

Inside Australia and New Guinea, legal guidelines exist to guard echidnas inside their habitat vary. It’s unlawful in Australia to choose up or transfer an echidna from its habitat. Fortunately, most of the echidnas in each international locations stay in protected areas, and the species inhabitants in all areas continues to be studied and monitored by conservationists.

Get to Know the Hedgehog

Now that we’ve decided that an echidna is not a hedgehog, let’s give that spiky critter its due. These tiny, carnivorous creatures weigh as much as 2.4 kilos and develop to between 5.5 and 12 inches lengthy. The world’s 15 completely different species of hedgehogs stay in grasslands, hedgerows, woodlands and meadows throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

Enjoyable truth: Hedgehogs swim fairly properly and might climb timber!

You in all probability know hedgehogs by their prickly spines, or quills, the defining attribute that, like porcupines, results in the confusion between the species. Just like the echidna, the hedgehog makes use of its spines for protection by curling up into a decent ball, tucking in its head, tail and legs, and defending the weak elements of its physique. It’s, nonetheless, a fable {that a} hedgehog can roll about when it’s balled up—as lovable as that may be!

Whereas porcupine quills detach from their physique fairly simply, hedgehog quills don’t. Porcupines have as many as 6,000 of those keratin quills on their physique.

A hedgehog’s spines aren’t all the time arduous and spiky. When hedgehogs are born, their spines are comfortable and brief. It isn’t till they’re about three weeks previous that the spines have hardened and gotten stiffer, sharper and longer. It’s additionally round this time that, with their eyes now open, they’ll comply with their mom outdoors the nest as she hunts for meals.

Talking of meals, hedgehogs are named for his or her technique of consuming. They root round beneath hedges to seek out bugs, small mice, snails, lizards, frogs, eggs and snakes—and so they make a cute little snorting sound as they accomplish that! Hedgehogs are principally nocturnal and hunt down their meals at night time. A hedgehog can eat as a lot as one-third of its physique weight in a single night time. If it’s a wet day, you may additionally see them out after the rain lets up.

Another enjoyable truth: Hedgehogs have one other cool defensive mechanism along with their spines. They will make their spikes toxic by “borrowing” poison from sure crops to which they’re immune. They make a frothy saliva, lick the crops, then their spines, spreading the poison onto their our bodies. Researchers consider this additionally helps the hedgehog disguise its scent from predators.

The place Can I See Hedgehogs?

Though hedgehog numbers are declining within the UK (extra on that in a minute), it’s nonetheless a great place to hunt them out in hedgerows and meadows. On our English Cotswolds journey, you’ll expertise a barely extra refined pure setting than on a few of our extra rugged departures. Throughout the Cotswold Hills, we discover Britain’s largest designated Nationwide Panorama and its historical beech forest, wildflower meadows, idyllic hedgerows and trout-filled streams—prime hedgehog habitat.

Nat Hab vacationers {photograph} vibrant wildflower fields in England © Hollie Galloway

Within the Chedworth Valley, we search for the now-rare hedgehogs in polar, chestnut, rowan and whitebeam forests and hedgerows. We take time to stroll by means of the Slad Valley, untouched by improvement and residential to 4 small nature reserves. We might also glimpse songbirds, butterflies, deer, foxes and badgers on this idyllic vale.

Are Hedgehogs Threatened or Endangered?

Sadly, native hedgehog numbers are declining quickly within the UK. Nationally, the agricultural hedgehog inhabitants has declined between 30% and 75% since 2000. They’re very not often discovered on farmland anymore, growing the significance of rigorously managed wildlife-friendly backyard areas.

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the Folks’s Belief for Endangered Species have partnered on a undertaking referred to as Hedgehog Road to empower folks with a greater understanding of the beloved hedgehog and the way it can survive and thrive in suburban areas.

There are various steps one can take at house to offer optimistic hedgehog habitat, together with linking collectively neighborhood gardens as a kind of hedgehog freeway, putting in a ramp at a pond’s edge, eliminating chemical use, successfully coping with netting and litter, and extra. Questioning learn how to assist if you happen to don’t stay within the UK? Take into account adopting a hedgehog (symbolically, in fact)!

Get to Know the Porcupine

As you’ve in all probability guessed, porcupines aren’t hedgehogs, and so they’re not echidnas. However you possibly can’t deny their comparable appearances! These bigger, slow-moving rodents even have sharp quills, and so they’re discovered on each continent besides Antarctica.

There are Previous World porcupines—present in Africa, Europe and Asia—and New World porcupines— present in North, Central and South America. The North American porcupine is the one one present in the US and Canada.

North American porcupine, Erethizon dorsatum consuming rose hips in Yukon, Canada.

Porcupine quills are tremendous lengthy. Some can develop as much as 12 inches lengthy, for instance, on the Africa’s crested porcupine. Like echidnas and hedgehogs, porcupines use their spikes for protection. They shake them, making them rattle, as a warning to predators. They will additionally cost backwards at predators, quills first!

A porcupine’s quills are loosely hooked up to its physique, but when one is misplaced, it’s not ceaselessly. They develop again over time. All informed, a North American porcupine can have 30,000 or extra quills.

These spiky gals and guys are usually bigger than hedgehogs and echidnas, although differing types differ extensively in dimension. The North African crested porcupine grows as much as 36 inches lengthy, whereas the smallest—the Bahia furry dwarf porcupine— grows to solely 15 inches lengthy. And porcupines can weigh between 2.5 and 77 kilos—fairly a variety.

Their quills vary in dimension, too. New World porcupines have shorter quills that develop to be about 4 inches lengthy, whereas Previous World porcupine quills can develop as much as 20 inches lengthy.

Alert Cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis) with erect quills, South Africa.

Like echidnas and hedgehogs, porcupines are predominantly nocturnal. Whereas each New World and Previous World porcupines desire the nighttime for foraging, New World porcupines spend most of their time within the timber, whereas the Previous World species stick with the bottom.

Porcupines are herbivores, sticking to a eating regimen of wooden, bark, stems, nuts, tubers, seeds, grass, leaves, fruit and buds. Not like echidnas, porcupines have tooth, and so they usually chew on bones to maintain them sharp.

The place Can I See Porcupines?

As we talked about above, porcupines stay throughout the globe on each continent besides Antarctica. They are often discovered nearly wherever, as anticipated given their geographical vary. Porcupines love deserts, grasslands, mountains, rain forests and forests. They make their dens inside tree branches or roots, in rocky crevices, in hollowed-out logs and in brushy areas.

African porcupine defends itself from leopard assault.

Since they stay in so many locations, you could spot porcupines on nearly any Nat Hab journey! Search for Previous World porcupines on our adventures in  Africa, Europe and Asia, and preserve your eyes peeled for New World porcupines in North, Central and South America.

North American porcupine.

Are Porcupines Threatened or Endangered?

Excellent news! On the subject of porcupines’ standing on the planet, most are listed as “Least Concern” by the IUCN, relying on the species. The one two which might be listed as “Susceptible” are the Philippine porcupine and the bristle-spined porcupine.

We hope this has given you a greater understanding of the variations among the many echidnas of southern Australia, hedgehogs and porcupines. We’d like to see you on an upcoming Australia South journey to introduce you to an echidna first-hand!

Nat Hab & WWF traveler meets an echidna for the primary time at a wildlife sanctuary in Tasmania © Dellys Starr