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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature: Porcupine


In California, porcupines are primarily found in coniferous forests, but across western North America they occur in a wide variety of habitats including pinyon-juniper woodlands, riparian forests, sagebrush, rangelands, and desert chaparral. The common porcupine is found throughout the Sierra Nevada and Cascades from Kern County north to the Oregon border, south in the Coast Ranges to Sonoma County, and from San Mateo County south to Los Angeles County. Scattered populations occur in wooded habitats throughout the Central Valley, as well as Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Common to fairly common throughout its range, porcupine populations tend to be localized.

Reported sightings of porcupines in southern California are rare. One historic occurrence was reported from the San Bernardino Mountains in 1906. The most recent porcupine record is from a road kill in the San Bernardino Mountains in the 1960s, but there is a reliable report of a road kill in the San Gabriel Mountains during a large wildland fire in the 1980s. Some evidence for porcupine presence in the San Bernardino Mountains was found in 1989.  In addition, field crews conducting research on California spotted owls have reported several sightings of porcupine during the 1990s.
Porcupines are found near the Sierra Nevadas in California The North American porcupine is a rodent  that spends a good deal of its life in trees stripping off the outer bark to expose the cambrium layer which he eats. Many trees are killed outright each year due to the amount of bark removed and from insects and disease attacking the wound made by the porcupine.

The North American Porcupine is about 29 inches  long plus a short tail that is 8 inches  long. They have a blunt snout, short legs, and long, curved claws on the feet. Like all rodents, the porcupine's front top teeth continue to grow throughout its life. It must gnaw on hard things to keep wearing the teeth down. The North American porcupine's front teeth are orange.

A porcupine may have as many as 30,000 quills. The quill of the porcupine is white with a dark tip, upwards of five inches in length and one-eighth inch in diameter. The quill is found among the long guard hair and the shorter under-fur. The size of the quills varies with their location in the porcupine’s body, the longer thicker quills being found on the tail, with the quills becoming more delicate toward the head and under-belly.
Sharp, barbed quills protect the back, sides, and tail; long, stiff guard hairs cover the front upper part of the body. The quills are usually held flat against the porcupine's body. When the porcupine is in danger, it raises the quills upright, so they can easily lodge in an enemy when it brushes up against the porcupine. The barbs in the quills make them difficult to remove, since they point backwards.

Porcupines cannot shoot their quills! Quills are just modified hairs made out of keratin, the same substance found in our own hair and fingernails. The quills do not cover the underside of the porcupine. Porcupines have muscles at the base of each quill that allow them to stand up when the animal is excited or alarmed. Like all hairs, quills do shed, and when the porcupines shake, loose quills can fly off (but without deadly force). Still, the quills can cause problems, and puncture wounds inflicted by porcupines are very serious.
porcupine have sharp quills and use them in California nature The range of the porcupine is from Alaska south through Canada, the Great Lakes region, parts of the Northeastern United States, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast states. The porcupines found in North and South America are good climbers and spend much of their time in trees.  The North American porcupine is the only species that lives in the U.S. and Canada, and is the largest of all porcupines.

Porcupines eat primarily pine needles and bark, roots, stems, leaves, berries, meadow grass, seeds, flowers, nuts, aquatic vegetation, fruits, and tubers. Some have been known to take fruit and corn from plantations, and the North American porcupine has earned a bad reputation for killing timber and ornamental trees by stripping bark from the trunks.

Porcupines mate in late summer and early fall. Porcupines are very vocal during mating season. Males often fight over females. The male performs an elaborate dance and sprays urine over the head of the female. Seven months after mating the female gives birth to a single baby.
Porcupine babies, called porcupettes, are not born with sharp or barbed quills, thank goodness! Instead, the porcupette's quills are soft and bendable, gradually hardening in the first few days after birth. The youngster will stay with its mother for just a few months before it's ready to live on its own.

The common porcupine is a solitary animal, although it may den with other porcupines in the winter. It makes its den in caves, decaying logs and hollow trees. The common porcupine doesn't hibernate, but it may stay in its den during bad weather.

The common porcupine is a good swimmer, its hollow quills help keep it afloat. It is also an excellent tree-climber and spends much of its time in trees. It is a very vocal animal and has a wide-variety of calls including moans, grunts, coughs, wails, whines, shrieks and tooth clicking.
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