Born to Bristle? The Surprising Truth About Baby Porcupines

Meet Icana, a Brazilian porcupine, and learn what unique feature helps her maintain balance while foraging and sleeping in the trees.

Transcript

00:00I'm Tristan, and I'm an educator here at the San Diego Zoo.

00:04I would love to introduce you to one of my co-workers, but first, I want you to try and guess what she is.

00:09She has a round nose, sharp spiny quills, and a long prehensile tail.

00:16Any guesses?

00:19This is my friend Isana. She's a Brazilian or prehensile-tailed porcupine.

00:23There are many different species of porcupine, but this particular species comes from Brazil

00:28and all the surrounding countries down in South America.

00:37One of my favorite facts about porcupines is that the babies are called porcupettes.

00:42When Isana was first born, she was actually a very rusty color, almost orange,

00:47and all of those quills were super soft.

00:50Then, after a couple of days, they actually turned a little bit harder

00:53and became the quills that they are today.

00:55At the end of each one of these quills are sharp barbs.

01:00Now, those barbs not only make her nice and sharp, but they're sticky, too.

01:05Ouch!

01:14Isana is an herbivore, so she uses that big nose to sniff out some of her favorite foods.

01:19Here at the zoo, she likes to eat bananas, biscuits, and yams.

01:24Which one do you want today?

01:29So Isana is a prehensile-tailed porcupine.

01:33What prehensile means is just that she has that long tail that she can use to grasp onto things,

01:39just like we use our hands for, so she can balance up high in the trees.

01:42Now, check out these feet, too.

01:45Not only can she use that tail to balance, but she can also use those feet to hang onto those branches

01:50as she's looking for her favorite foods.

01:55Since Isana's nocturnal, it's about time for her to head to bed.

01:59But we'll see you next time!

02:00See you next time!

02:01Bye!

02:02Bye!

02:03Bye!