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New World porcupines are stout animals, with blunt, rounded heads, fleshy, mobile snouts, and coats of thick, cylindrical or flattened spines. The "quills" are mixed with long, soft hairs. They vary in size from the relatively small prehensile-tailed porcupines, which are around 30 cm (12 in) long, and weigh about 900 g (32 oz), to the much ...
The North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum), also known as the Canadian porcupine, is a large quill-covered rodent in the New World porcupine family. It is the second largest rodent in North America after the North American beaver (Castor canadensis). The porcupine is a caviomorph rodent whose ancestors crossed the Atlantic from Africa to ...
Porcupine. Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two families of animals: the Old World porcupines of the family Hystricidae, and the New World porcupines of the family Erethizontidae. [1][2] Both families belong to the infraorder Hystricognathi within the ...
Erethizon is a genus of New World porcupine and the only one of its family to be found north of southern Mexico. The North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) is the only extant species, but at least 4 extinct relatives are known, the oldest dating to the Late Pliocene. [2] Porcupines entered North America during the Great American ...
The Old World porcupines, or Hystricidae, are large terrestrial rodents, distinguished by the spiny covering from which they take their name. They range over the south of Europe and the Levant, [1] most of Africa, India, and Southeast Asia as far east as Flores. Although both the Old World and New World porcupine families belong to the ...
Black dwarf porcupine. The black dwarf porcupine, also known as Koopman's porcupine (Coendou nycthemera), is a porcupine species from the New World porcupine family endemic to northern Brazil. It occurs in the Amazon rainforest east of the Madeira River and south of the Amazon River. It inhabits primary forest and possibly second growth.
[43] [44] [45] Their subsequent vigorous diversification displaced some of South America's small marsupials and gave rise to – among others – capybaras, chinchillas, viscachas, and New World porcupines. The independent development of spines by New and Old World porcupines is another example of parallel evolution. This invasion most likely ...
Erethizontinae. Bonaparte, 1845. Genera. Coendou. Erethizon. Erethizontinae is a subfamily of the New World porcupine family Erethizontidae, [1] and includes all species of the family with the exception of the bristle-spined rat, Chaetomys subspinosus, which is classified in its own subfamily, Chaetomyinae.