Although adult crested porcupines aren't anything to mess with, they don't start out that way! Baby porcupines, also known as porcupettes, are born with soft quills. These quills harden over the next several hours, and by the time they're a day old each porcupette is well equipped to defend themself against predators-- though they won't venture out of their den for another week or so.
Image: A mother cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis) along with her two porcupettes, by the London Zoo)
So. My partner and I have a holiday tradition where we go to at least one, sometimes multiple, bookstores and buy each other piles of books. It's a fun once-a-year splurge, and so we both usually end up with a great array of new and secondhand books to enjoy throughout the year. We ended up delaying things until Powell's had their Friends and Family sale, and hit up a couple of their locations along with a few other local bookstores. I got some pretty awesome stuff this year, but this has to be my best find:
It's exactly the kind of thing one would use to bait a trap for me (along with assorted cheese and warm, cozy wool socks). I collect field guides, and this one is delightfully niche. I almost put it back after reading the title because I've been trying to cut back a little on adding to my pretty, artistic vintage field guides in favor of up to date books for research. But then I looked inside:
Look at that. This isn't just discussing the general fur patterns and textures of mammal hairs. It's a bunch of microscopic photos of each type of hair of each species listed, showing unique cuticle textures that can be used to identify an animal based on a single hair. I mean, this is one of those areas of nature identification I knew existed but had just never really delved into myself.
Oh, and it's been out of print for ages and is basically impossible to find online. The chances of me finding this again were pretty slim. And for fourteen bucks less 30%? SOLD.
I really appreciate how several canids were included, like the gray wolf, coyote, coydog, German shepherd, and Labrador retriever (really cool to see how the textures of the two domesticated breeds differed!) I can also see where this would be really useful if you have some sort of pack-hunting canids going after livestock and you manage to find a bit of hair; I wonder how many wild species would be exonerated in cases where it's actually domestic or feral dogs causing trouble?
I'm also really intrigued by this note on the porcupine's page. Is it caution over issues identifying porcupine hairs, or did Moore et. al. write an entire study (or book) on reasons to exercise caution when collecting and examining a porcupine's hairs? (Probably best to save the examination for hairs that are not still attached to said porcupine.)
Anyway. This is a really cool addition to the field guide collection that's got me wanting to break out my microscope once I have the book manuscript done and have a little more time.
Contrary to popular belief, porcupines can’t throw their quills. However, the foot-long barbs are loosely attached to the porcupine’s skin and will easily become embedded in any animal that comes too close. Over time, any lost quills will be regrown, and a single porcupine may have over 30,000 at a time.
(Image: A North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) by Ashley Conti)
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