Porcupines
eBook - ePub

Porcupines

The Animal Answer Guide

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Porcupines

The Animal Answer Guide

About this book

Porcupines are prickly and often misunderstood creatures—get the facts.

Could a porcupine make a good pet? Do they ever stick themselves or other porcupines with their quills? In this latest addition to the Animal Answer Guide series, we learn about these mysterious animals' "pincushion defense," along with the following facts:

• Porcupines survive on a diet of leaves, bark, and fruit
• Quills are actually modified hairs
• There are 26 species of porcupines (and counting)
• Old World and New World porcupines have a common ancestor but evolved independently
• New World males will gather to fight ferociously over a single female

Porcupines: The Animal Answer Guide presents solid, current science in the field of porcupine biology. Uldis Roze compares and contrasts porcupines in terms of body plan, behavior, ecology, reproduction, and evolutionary relationships. He examines the diversity of porcupines from around the world—from North and South America to Africa and Asia.

This guide explores the interactions between humans and porcupines, including hunting, use of quills by aboriginal societies, efforts to poison porcupines, and human and pet injuries (and deaths) caused by porcupines. Roze also highlights the conservation issues that surround some porcupine species, such as the thin-spine porcupine of Brazil, which is so rare that it was thought to be extinct until its rediscovery in the 1980s.

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Yes, you can access Porcupines by Uldis Roze in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Biology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Introduction
  8. 1 Introducing Porcupines
  9. 2 Form and Function of Porcupines
  10. 3 Porcupine Colors
  11. 4 Porcupine Behavior
  12. 5 Porcupine Ecology
  13. 6 Reproduction and Development
  14. 7 Foods and Feeding
  15. 8 Porcupines and Humans
  16. 9 Porcupine Problems (from a human’s viewpoint)
  17. 10 Human Problems (from a porcupine’s viewpoint)
  18. 11 Porcupines in Stories and Literature
  19. 12 ā€œPorcupinologyā€
  20. Appendix A: Porcupines of the World
  21. Appendix B: Worldwide Wildlife Rehabilitation Organizations
  22. Bibliography
  23. Index
  24. Color Plates