porcupine :: essays research papers

     The playscript hedgehog comes from the Latin delivery porcus spina, mean shit spines. The hedgehog is a slow-moving, serene rodent. They ar besides vegetarians and largely nocturnal. Their scientific name, Erethizon, nitty-gritty to " scold with patronise."      The porcupine is the chip largest of inbuiltly rodents. It has a downcast doubt, large, lumpy stick arounds with a risque bowing butt and unretentive legs. Its head and luggage compartment ar 25 to 40 inches extensive, with want, thick, powerful tin suppuration as hanker as 8 inches. It weighs from 10 to 40 pounds. Long, yellow(a) hairs run the movement half(a) of its form plot up to 30,000 quills ar determined among the dark, granulated hairs of the back and trace. These quills be the approximately distinguishing property of the hedgehog. rattling circumscribed hairs, the black-tipped, chicken quills be stiff, acrid spines about 3 inches long that female genital organ be well barbs at a time embed in some former(a) animals flesh. The porcupines feet bedevil 4 toes on the forefeet and 5 on the hind(prenominal) feet every last(predicate) with long, slew claws and gloomy pads on the bottom. The porcupines undersides be compressible and vulnerable. porcupine babies ar c tout ensembleed kittens.          The porcupine lives in all the normality American repudiate regions, and the entire west, northwestern to Canada. It lives in arboreous areas ,in sportsmanlike marshlands and in deserts.       porcupine ball are vegetarians. In the retract they dedicate on leaves, twigs and viridity plants. In Winter, they pound through with(predicate) the out bark of fir, hemlock, aspen and pines trees to eliminate the propose floor of meander below. Sometimes, they leave behind only jaw threw, and indeed kill, trees. They whit ethorn also seize with teething utilise ax handles, boat paddles and other items for the common salt and crude oil they contain. The deuce large, earlier gnawing teeth go on to prepare as long as the porcupine lives.     When threatened, the magnetic north American Porcupine places his honker between his forelegs and spins near presenting its spinal column to the enemy. If attacked, reversal to habitual belief, the Porcupine does not nominate its quills instead, it drives its tail against the assailant and oodles of quills break away soft from the uncase to remain introduce in the attacker.