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Prehensile Tail Porcupine

Description

Prehensile-tailed porcupines are well adapted for life in the trees and rarely descend to the ground. They have compact bodies covered in short spines mixed with coarse hairs. They can be colorful, with shades of yellow, white and black. The quills can lay flat, or be erected if the porcupine is disturbed. Their head is small and their nose is round and bulbous and covered with short fine hair but no quills. Their most prominent feature – one that they are named for – is their long prehensile tail. They use their tail as a fifth hand that helps them hold on to branches as they climb through the forest canopy. The last third of the tail is spineless on the upper surface which gives the animal a better grip. They hold on to branches by spiraling their tail around in a very typical way.

Diet

Herbivores that feed on leaves, stems, fruits, blossoms, and roots 

Behavior

Prehensile-tailed porcupines are not well studied in the wild because they stay high in the trees and are slow-moving and largely immobile during the day, which makes them difficult to spot. Nocturnal and solitary, they spend the day sleeping in a hollow tree or curled up in the fork of a branch. At night they move around - foraging for food in the treetops. Although they tend to move slowly, they are surprisingly agile and can climb quickly when necessary. They cannot jump and must descend to the ground if they need to cross a gap between trees. Their quills are short and barbed and provide this slow moving animal with an impressive defense. They cannot throw their quills (no porcupine can) but the quills detach easily when touched and embed themselves in the skin of an enemy. Their defenses are so formidable that porcupines can have the luxury of a long lifespan and slow reproductive rate unlike many other rodents.

Range

Panama; Andes from Columbia to Argentina and Northwest Brazil 

Lifespan 

15 years