Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you Should Know about porcupines, which
Speaker 1: this is a great idea, Chuck, good job. You know
Speaker 1: the porcupine. When you take away all those quills, it's
Speaker 1: just a cute little guinea pig basically a giant one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a cute big guinea pig. Speaking of cute porcupines, Dude,
Speaker 1: do you remember Teddy Bear the porcupine kind of went
Speaker 1: a little viral a few years ago. You have to
Speaker 1: watch Teddy Bear the porcupine, specifically Teddy Teddy Bear the
Speaker 1: porcupine doesn't like to share on YouTube. And it is
Speaker 1: this porcupine eating corn on the cop and making all
Speaker 1: these sounds like cousin it and it is one of
Speaker 1: the cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we want to shout out Live Science, Smithsonian, Mental Floss,
Speaker 1: the San Diego Zoo, and a couple of other websites
Speaker 1: that I coupled together this wonderful bit on one of
Speaker 1: our wonderful animal friends in the world. We'd love to
Speaker 1: do these shows. Uh. It just made me think, have
Speaker 1: you seen the octopus documentary thing yet? No? I haven't.
Speaker 1: I'ven't been like kind of popping up in my in
Speaker 1: my periphery. I don't really know what it is. Is
Speaker 1: it just about OCTOPI well, it's it's called My Octopus Teacher.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet, but I just know the
Speaker 1: the deal is this guy kind of gets to know
Speaker 1: one octopus and that's, you know, a nice story in
Speaker 1: suos is all. I know? That's neat. We'll have to
Speaker 1: watch that. Yeah, I can't. I can't wait. But um,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned that because you know, we've a long
Speaker 1: said that the octopus is our favorite animal, but feel
Speaker 1: like almost every time we've done one on an animal,
Speaker 1: it's on something that we love. And boy do I
Speaker 1: love the quill pig. I do too. Yeah, apparently that's
Speaker 1: what the their Latin name means, quill pig. That is
Speaker 1: fantastic um. And it turns out a chuck that there
Speaker 1: are basically two groups that porcupines get lumped into. There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of different gene genei yeah that's right, and
Speaker 1: species um. But there they basically fall under two categories.
Speaker 1: It's Old World, which is Europe, Africa, Asia, and the
Speaker 1: New World, which is North, South and Central America. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you saw a you know, porcupine in South
Speaker 1: America and you saw one in you know, the Himalayas,
Speaker 1: you probably would be like, that's porcupine. That's porcupine too.
Speaker 1: They're not radically different like some Old World and New
Speaker 1: worlds um um animals are. Yeah. But something I saw
Speaker 1: that was interesting was that they evolved separately what one
Speaker 1: of those what is it called co evolutions or whatever. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. That's that is crazy. I saw that,
Speaker 1: and I only saw it in one place, So I
Speaker 1: think that might have been a personal hypothesis as somebody
Speaker 1: who got them maybe website. I saw it somewhere though. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the two actually, um, the Old World in
Speaker 1: the New World have less in common than they do
Speaker 1: individually with like some other rodents in their area. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm actually not surprised to hear that. But the
Speaker 1: one thing that they do have in common across the
Speaker 1: board is that they have quills, and that they use
Speaker 1: their quills defensively. Now what their quills look like, um,
Speaker 1: how they use their quills. Um. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: other distinctions and differences between Old World and New World,
Speaker 1: but they all have quilts. They're all porcupines. That seems
Speaker 1: to be the thing that that binds them. It's the
Speaker 1: tie that binds that family. Yeah, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: easy to take the porcupine for granted, I think, and
Speaker 1: just say, yeah, that the little animal with all those quills.
Speaker 1: But when you take a step back and look at
Speaker 1: it and think about the evolution of the porcupine, that uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's sort of would be a very large,
Speaker 1: sort of cute, little fluffy guinea pig, but it probably
Speaker 1: got eaten a lot um and then you know, they
Speaker 1: said nuts to this nature steps in. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: how about this. What if we were just animal pincushions
Speaker 1: such that if he came anywhere near us, you would
Speaker 1: be stabbed repeatedly if you tried to eat us. Like,
Speaker 1: It's one of the most amazing evolutionary adaptations I've ever seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean they they can really use those things too. Um.
Speaker 1: There's a longstanding myth that they can shoot them, which
Speaker 1: is not true. But apparently even Aristotle fell for that one.
Speaker 1: And what a dummy. But they can use them in
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting way. And you hit the nail on
Speaker 1: the head when you said, you know, step back if
Speaker 1: you see a porcupine, that is good advice. You should
Speaker 1: probably step back because depending on these the species, or
Speaker 1: whether it's Old World or New World, those quills can
Speaker 1: mess you up pretty good. Yeah. But also you know,
Speaker 1: get nearby and take a look, like they're not going
Speaker 1: to come after you. That porcupine is a very kind
Speaker 1: hearted animal and those are for defense. A porcupine is
Speaker 1: never going to charge you and you know, leap at
Speaker 1: your belly to to put quills all in your stomach. Um,
Speaker 1: So take a little look, admire it for what it is. UM.
Speaker 1: I think you know, to talk about porcupine is a
Speaker 1: lot of this is talking about the Old World versus
Speaker 1: the Rush version. Yeah, so the big differences that I saw, UM,
Speaker 1: And there's lots of differences between different species within each
Speaker 1: of these groups, but the Old World versus New World
Speaker 1: has some big differences between a UM, and one of
Speaker 1: them is that Old World are typically terrestrial porcupines. They
Speaker 1: spend most of their lives on the ground. UM. They
Speaker 1: live in burrows or caves, or rock dens and New
Speaker 1: World porcupines they live on the ground too. They live
Speaker 1: in burrows, but they're also very capable of climbing trees. UM,
Speaker 1: and they'll they'll spend a significant amount of time and
Speaker 1: sometimes nest in trees. And there are some species that
Speaker 1: spend virtually their whole lives and trees, almost like sloths. Yeah. UM.
Speaker 1: Quill wise, uh, the New World porcupines quills are going
Speaker 1: to be shorter and smaller in general. I think they're
Speaker 1: about four to ten four inches ten centimeters UM. The
Speaker 1: Old World dudes and ladies they can get very long.
Speaker 1: They can have quills up to twenty inches long. UM.
Speaker 1: They can be marked with UM black and white bands.
Speaker 1: And what they can do is these Old World guys
Speaker 1: can puff them up UM, so they stand up and
Speaker 1: are more intimidating and look Also. I mean it's weird
Speaker 1: because it's it's like multi fuld like four or five
Speaker 1: different things they do. By doing this, they look larger,
Speaker 1: So that's always something that UM vulnerable animals try to
Speaker 1: do in the wild. They look like a skunk a
Speaker 1: little bit because of the black and white marking down
Speaker 1: their back. They actually have a defensive musk kind of
Speaker 1: like a a skunk, but just not nearly as bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they try to imitate a skunk a little bit. Um,
Speaker 1: they look bigger, they they rattle. They can shake those
Speaker 1: things and rattle them, which is another great adaptation to say,
Speaker 1: like get away from me and don't try and eat me.
Speaker 1: And supposedly that works pretty well too. Yeah, totally. And
Speaker 1: then if all else fails, they're stabby. They are stabby.
Speaker 1: So um. Sometimes the old world ones will actually charge
Speaker 1: backwards toward a predator if they're feeling like they want
Speaker 1: to stand their ground. Um. And that's usually when they're
Speaker 1: caught out in the open. If they have a place
Speaker 1: to hide, they'll stick their head in that used to
Speaker 1: hide and then puff out their quills and make themselves
Speaker 1: hard to get at. Um. But if they're on the open,
Speaker 1: they may decide that they're going to fight off this
Speaker 1: predator and they'll charge backward. And one other adaptation I
Speaker 1: saw which I thought was was awesome. They'll have the
Speaker 1: predator chase it and then they'll stop all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: and the predator will run into them in their quills
Speaker 1: for real, and then you hear the sound effect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly and then it's too late. Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: interesting because those quills, even though they puff them out,
Speaker 1: they are pointed generally in the reverse direction, which you know,
Speaker 1: which is why they have to back up into something
Speaker 1: to to quill them or like you said, bury them.
Speaker 1: Just throw on that that parking break real quick, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that fox has got a faceful
Speaker 1: of quill. Right. So that Old world UM contains a
Speaker 1: couple of species that are called crested porcupines, and they
Speaker 1: basically look like if the quills were like an umbrella
Speaker 1: open at the back of their head and just kind
Speaker 1: of sticks out like that, and like you said, it
Speaker 1: makes them look a lot bigger. They're a lot more dangerous. Um.
Speaker 1: The big difference with quills between the Old World and
Speaker 1: the New World, in addition to being shorter, is um
Speaker 1: Old world porcupines are covered in quills. That's all they have.
Speaker 1: Like they have Like I don't know if we said
Speaker 1: or not, but quills are just modified hair. Um, They're
Speaker 1: made of caratin. They're they're just like hair. They're just
Speaker 1: ways stabbier than hair that you and I have, meats, fingernails. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great way to put it. And Old World
Speaker 1: porcupines that's all they have our quills UM. New World
Speaker 1: porcupines have quills that are also mixed in with um
Speaker 1: fur like an undercoat, longer hairs UM, and their quills
Speaker 1: kind of stand up and are are used for defense.
Speaker 1: That's not just it's not all that they have UM.
Speaker 1: And the other thing about their quills is that they
Speaker 1: have little barbs, and New World um porcupines barbs make
Speaker 1: the New World quails way more dangerous than Old World quils. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like a little fishhook basically, and it'll instead of
Speaker 1: just poking right into you, it'll actually snag in your
Speaker 1: flesh and makes it, like you said, way way tougher
Speaker 1: to get out. UM. Much harder time removing a New
Speaker 1: World quill than an Old World quill. But those New
Speaker 1: World guys are uh because their quills start further back.
Speaker 1: You get the feeling if you just and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: recommend this, but if you just go very gently and
Speaker 1: just say, hey, little guy, you never do that. I
Speaker 1: just I just want to give you a scritch under
Speaker 1: the under the chin, and I think you might enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna move very slowly, just don't turn around,
Speaker 1: and you'll you'll have a really good time. I'd like
Speaker 1: to include a disclaimer here, don't do it. You guys
Speaker 1: should not listen to Chuck right now. He's doling out
Speaker 1: some really terrible advice. Yeah, it's just because those quills
Speaker 1: start further back. They got that cute little head and face,
Speaker 1: and it just makes you want to give him a scratch. Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 1: Like if you watch Teddy Teddy Bear videos, um, Teddy
Speaker 1: Bear the porcupine, you will want to go get one
Speaker 1: as a pet. There's another one I saw called Diva,
Speaker 1: and she's a baby porcupine. She's adorable. Um, yeah, you
Speaker 1: totally want to do that. And I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: ways to handle them. But I also saw, you know,
Speaker 1: one of those zoo guys on a late night talk
Speaker 1: show and he had I think an African crested porcupine
Speaker 1: on his lap and that thing was not at all
Speaker 1: worried or scared or um in any sort of defense mode.
Speaker 1: And that dude was in pain just letting this thing
Speaker 1: sit on his lap because I don't know. You said,
Speaker 1: you know, they look like guinea pigs, and I said,
Speaker 1: overgrown guinea pigs. Some of these things can get really big.
Speaker 1: There's a cape porcupine. I think it's the biggest one.
Speaker 1: They get up to like sixty five pounds. Sixty pounds
Speaker 1: is like a large dog and with quills though, with
Speaker 1: the quills puffed up. No, like there's sixty five pounds,
Speaker 1: you're sound. And then but imagine a sixty five pound
Speaker 1: dog with those quills. That's that's dangerous. Yeah, what I meant.
Speaker 1: I know they don't actually weigh more when they puff up,
Speaker 1: but they can when they put those quills out, they
Speaker 1: can look two to three times their size. So yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine that thing looks enormous. And actually I don't do
Speaker 1: this much, but I'm watching that that thing eat that
Speaker 1: corn on the cob right now. Isn't that adorable? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to have the sound down, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go back and watch it. You have to hear the sound,
Speaker 1: like the sound does it. But even without the sound,
Speaker 1: he's just awfully cute. Yeah, it kind of They kind
Speaker 1: of look like beavers a little bit too, and they
Speaker 1: are related as fellow rodents. Um here, I think we
Speaker 1: should take a break. So I'm getting kind of worked
Speaker 1: up here, and we'll come back and talk more about
Speaker 1: these cute little stabby suckers right after this. Okay, Charles,
Speaker 1: we're back, and um, we've been talking mostly about quills. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so one more thing about quills, and there's going to
Speaker 1: be more than one more thing about quils, let's be honest.
Speaker 1: But we said they couldn't shoot them. What they can do?
Speaker 1: These things do fall out just like hair, and they
Speaker 1: grow just like fingernails and will eventually fall so when
Speaker 1: they shake, they if they have loose quills, they can
Speaker 1: fly off. But they're still not like shooting, like Aristotle said,
Speaker 1: like deadly needle darts. No, but they can be problematic,
Speaker 1: like these things can puncture the sidewalls of tires. I
Speaker 1: was reading them the blog of some tire company K
Speaker 1: A L. Tires I think up in the Yukon, and
Speaker 1: they said that it's actually it can be a problem
Speaker 1: like on some roads. Yeah that if you're out in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere and you run over a porcupine quill,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're probably going to get a flat. That's
Speaker 1: how I thinks. Tough those things are. Well, that's sad.
Speaker 1: What for your tire, no for the for your afternoon? Well, No,
Speaker 1: you're not running over Are you still watching Teddy Bear videos? No?
Speaker 1: I thought you said if you run over a porcupine,
Speaker 1: it can fine quill. Oh, well, being what is it?
Speaker 1: Just a loose quill on the road. Yeah, exactly, that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like just a loose quill laying on
Speaker 1: the road. If you run over it goes into your sidewall,
Speaker 1: You're probably going to get a flat tire. That's how
Speaker 1: tough those things are. Okay, I thought you meant if
Speaker 1: you actually run over a porcupine and you have like
Speaker 1: a bunch of quills, I that would probably do it too,
Speaker 1: especially if the porcupine was in a defensive procedure. But
Speaker 1: the porcupine doesn't have to die in this case for
Speaker 1: you to go flat tire. So regardless of that sadness
Speaker 1: they there is sadness and that despite this great adaptation
Speaker 1: and this great defense mechanism, they still can be hunted.
Speaker 1: Um lions can still hunt them human people. There's the
Speaker 1: bush meat trade for the old world porcupines that is
Speaker 1: you know, just you know what that means. Uh, And
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're owls, wolverines, pythons. Uh. There's something
Speaker 1: called a fisher that looks sort of like a a weasel, bear,
Speaker 1: fox or something. Did you pack that thing up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's related to otters and weasels. Okay, but
Speaker 1: it had a sort of a bear face. It was interesting.
Speaker 1: But apparently stink too. Well. They stink in more ways
Speaker 1: than one because they learned to flip these porcupines over
Speaker 1: where they have that soft belly meat and no quills
Speaker 1: as a way to attack them, which really makes me mad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like fishers for that reason either.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of them until recently, until we started
Speaker 1: researching this, and I had neither. I don't like them.
Speaker 1: I just don't like them. Eat something else, Yeah, leave
Speaker 1: the porcupines alone, because they're actually pretty nice. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they don't eat what do they eat? They eat vegetables
Speaker 1: and fruits and berries and nuts and tubers and roots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so um, they eat all those things. They'll also eat
Speaker 1: crow ops, which is um. Porcupines are considered a nuisance,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a farmer or even a gardener in
Speaker 1: the suburbs, because they will eat your root vegetables. They
Speaker 1: will eat corn um love corn apparently um. But they'll
Speaker 1: also They have another thing too, where they need sodium
Speaker 1: in their diet. They actually need they need a pretty
Speaker 1: um even ratio of one to one of potassium to
Speaker 1: sodium for their electrical conductivity in their body to work.
Speaker 1: But they don't get much sodium in their diet. Um
Speaker 1: Plants have lots of potassium, not much sodium, so they
Speaker 1: have to go find it elsewhere. And it turns out
Speaker 1: we humans have a lot of stuff that has sodium
Speaker 1: in it. Apparently plywood glue contains a lot of sodium,
Speaker 1: so they love eating wood structures we build out of plywood.
Speaker 1: Um the salt that we put on the roads gets
Speaker 1: kicked up on the underside of our car, So you
Speaker 1: might find a porcupine chewing on the tie ears or
Speaker 1: the hoses or belts or wires under your car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that they would even because the humans sweat so
Speaker 1: much salt when they're working that they'll go Like if
Speaker 1: you have some some wooden pruners in your shed, they'll
Speaker 1: go in there and they'll start eating the handle of
Speaker 1: your pruners because it just has a residual human salt
Speaker 1: left over on it. Right, you just walk in, You're like,
Speaker 1: are you nuts? What is wrong with you, you porcupine
Speaker 1: for those fellas, Yeah, well they'll find anywhere they can
Speaker 1: find a natural salt, like they'll definitely eat that too.
Speaker 1: But yes, anything that has human sweat on, even trace
Speaker 1: amounts of human sweat, they'll go bonkers, like they eat
Speaker 1: oars um, paddles, that kind of stuff. So but yes,
Speaker 1: typically they eat um leaves, stems, they eat shoots and
Speaker 1: leaves um. They also, though, and this is another reason
Speaker 1: why they're considered a nuisance, they eat the bark off
Speaker 1: the tree, so they're considered generalists. They'll eat just about
Speaker 1: any kind of veget tatian um, which is actually they're
Speaker 1: also super adaptable, which is why you'll find porcupines almost
Speaker 1: anywhere there's vegetation um. But they they'll that's what they eat,
Speaker 1: you know, spring, summer, fall, and then in winter. They
Speaker 1: don't hibernate, which actually makes them kind of unusual as well.
Speaker 1: But they they go from being um generalists to what's
Speaker 1: known as um faculative specialists, meaning their diet becomes very
Speaker 1: limited to just one or two types of trees, and
Speaker 1: not just one or two types of trees. During the winter,
Speaker 1: they may just feed on the inner bark of one tree,
Speaker 1: and that can be problematic because the inner bark is
Speaker 1: where nutrients and water moves from the roots to the
Speaker 1: rest of the tree. And if that porcupine eats all
Speaker 1: the way around it, what's called girdling a tree, it
Speaker 1: can kill or seriously damage that tree. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have a problem if you live
Speaker 1: in the woods and stuff, and you see a tree,
Speaker 1: it could be a beaver. But either way, you kind
Speaker 1: of hand all the same. You can wrap like chicken
Speaker 1: wire around it around the bottom, or some sort of
Speaker 1: um aluminum or something cheating to keep the the beaver
Speaker 1: and or porcupine from non on that thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I would guess you'd want to wear work gloves because
Speaker 1: the salt from your hands is just gonna attract into
Speaker 1: that chicken wire. Uh. Yeah, they eat. They're nocturnal, so
Speaker 1: they're mainly doing this stuff at night. They're patrolling around,
Speaker 1: they're defending their areas that they feed. I saw both.
Speaker 1: I saw that their territorial I saw that they're also
Speaker 1: not territorial. Yeah, it probably depends with you know, so
Speaker 1: many different species because they will travel outside their home
Speaker 1: range if they want to get a mate um or
Speaker 1: if they need that salt. They're usually uh, they're fairly
Speaker 1: solo flyers, although um, sometimes you'll see a couple of them.
Speaker 1: Uh they may be made it, they may be siblings. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think we mentioned that. The Old World. Uh,
Speaker 1: porcupines are actually a good swimmers, both of them are
Speaker 1: for from what I understand. Oh really, m m okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and New World will actually go swim out to gather
Speaker 1: aquatic plants. They swim more than the Old World does.
Speaker 1: But they just swim to collect plants and then they
Speaker 1: bring it back to the shore to eat. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: they're they're living in they don't they'll like sleep in
Speaker 1: trees sometimes the climbers will. But uh, it seems like
Speaker 1: they make use of other animals dens when they're not
Speaker 1: around and they have left, Like they'll go to an
Speaker 1: art vark den that has been abandoned or a hole
Speaker 1: and they will change it around, maybe knocked down some walls,
Speaker 1: open up that floor plan. So island in the kitchen, Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, gotta have the big island and then you know,
Speaker 1: they they'll just adapt it to their needs because obviously
Speaker 1: they're a little puffier than the ard vark. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: in doing so, Chuck, A question that I kept running
Speaker 1: up against was what role did porcupines play in the ecosystem?
Speaker 1: And they think that one of the big roles they
Speaker 1: played by basically disturbing stuff. They disturbed the soil when
Speaker 1: they're when they're digging and burrowing and everything. Interesting. They
Speaker 1: they found that they the through that they propagate way
Speaker 1: more seeds than than would otherwise be propagated if they
Speaker 1: weren't around. So forests are much more diverse with them
Speaker 1: in it than without them because of all of their
Speaker 1: scratching and moving and all that stuff. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: seems like for rodents they live a long time. They
Speaker 1: can live and they I mean I sort of saw
Speaker 1: a wild range anywhere from three to five years in
Speaker 1: the wild to like ten years in the wild. I
Speaker 1: saw one that lived to be eighteen. I saw the
Speaker 1: record was five, which I think was second only two
Speaker 1: a beaver as far as the rodent record. I think
Speaker 1: there was a twenty eight year old beaver once I
Speaker 1: saw one in Brazil was can live up to twenty
Speaker 1: seven years in captivity. Yeah, so that's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: long lived. But yeah, I saw three to five years too.
Speaker 1: I guess it just depends on the species, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the other thing about their feeding habits is they
Speaker 1: eat seasonally, right, they're little hipsters. They eat seasonally and locally,
Speaker 1: So depending on what's there, they will I think in
Speaker 1: the winter they'll eat more evergreen needles and the like,
Speaker 1: sort of the inner bark of the trees and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And then you know, when those sweet berries
Speaker 1: come around or when that corn crop is coming in,
Speaker 1: just look out. Then they turned back into generalists. That's right. So, um,
Speaker 1: I feel like we cannot go any further, can't dance
Speaker 1: around the fact that porcupines copulate um, and when they
Speaker 1: do copulate, they produce offspring, and we should talk about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: should we break or should we do this and then break?
Speaker 1: I feel like we're gonna need to take a break
Speaker 1: after this. Okay. So porcupines have stabby quills. That's that
Speaker 1: point backwards, that's right. And if you know how a
Speaker 1: rodent in a mammal like this would have sex, it
Speaker 1: is from something a male approaching the female from the rear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: right where those things are pointing. And so you think,
Speaker 1: how do they do this? What happens is the males
Speaker 1: are gonna Um, they're gonna vie for the female. Like
Speaker 1: so many animals, they have these sort of noisy battles
Speaker 1: and they they whine and they stomp when they win
Speaker 1: and stomp their tail and try to impress the lady,
Speaker 1: puff their quills out. And if the lady says, all right,
Speaker 1: I think you might be a good match for me,
Speaker 1: what does he do? He sprays urine all over her.
Speaker 1: That's right, and she goes, She goes, that was wonderful. Um,
Speaker 1: let's go a big boy. Yeah, I'm gonna put down
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lay down my quills. Yeah, and move the
Speaker 1: tail to the side. It's a business time, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the tail is barbed. I don't think we said
Speaker 1: that either. No, but like all the quills are barbed, right, Well, no,
Speaker 1: I think the actual tail is barbed. Oh good lord
Speaker 1: as well, which you can help with the climbing and stuff. Right.
Speaker 1: So I think it would take being sprayed with your
Speaker 1: into two. You would want to reach that level of
Speaker 1: commitment to make sure that you could trust that that
Speaker 1: barbed tail is going to be kept to the side.
Speaker 1: Are we in? Right? And then yes that that definitely
Speaker 1: says yes you're in. Um, you're in get it. I
Speaker 1: told you we would need to break. Let's take one show,
Speaker 1: all right, and we'll talk you about We'll talk about
Speaker 1: porky pets right after this. Yeah, so, Chuck, the porcupines
Speaker 1: have copulated. They were successful, um, and the female has
Speaker 1: now just stated for two d and five to two
Speaker 1: hundred seventeen days. And what did you say? We're just
Speaker 1: born porcupets like Q T T E s. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: pets is in something you keep. But yeah, little porcupets
Speaker 1: like like the the fifties singing group Girl version of
Speaker 1: the Porcupines, Randy Porcupine and the Porcupets right exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And here's where I got a little confusing, because I
Speaker 1: saw different stuff depending on where I looked. And again
Speaker 1: it may be according to species. UM. I saw that
Speaker 1: they rarely have more than one at a time. I
Speaker 1: also saw that sometimes they have up to four, but
Speaker 1: let's just say between one and four per litter U.
Speaker 1: And they stay with their their mommy's for a little
Speaker 1: longer than U than why I found it says, and
Speaker 1: I think from the San Diego Zoo just a few months.
Speaker 1: But I also saw anywhere from twelve to twenty four months,
Speaker 1: and they at least um, I need that mother's milk
Speaker 1: for like six months. And I think it really depends
Speaker 1: on the species. Like I saw, um, those the largest ones,
Speaker 1: the cape porcupine, they actually stay in family units of
Speaker 1: a mom and a dad and one to two kids,
Speaker 1: and the dad's usually out of there with the porcupines, right.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, especially with North American porcupines, I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot because we're in America. A lot of the
Speaker 1: info we got was for North American porcupines, and people
Speaker 1: just called it porcupines, which required a lot more digging.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, um, with North American porcupines, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: good luck with the kids. And then the mom has
Speaker 1: the kid and it's like, hey, I'm weaning you. Good
Speaker 1: luck with the rest of your life. And then they
Speaker 1: live this kind of solitary, happy existence, digging around and
Speaker 1: eating tree bark. Yeah. And uh, if you think the
Speaker 1: porcupet is as soft and cute as you would imagine,
Speaker 1: you were correct. Those needle like quills start to um
Speaker 1: stiffen up very quickly, but it takes that. It kind
Speaker 1: of starts three or four days later, and then I
Speaker 1: imagine takes a little while to reach full you know,
Speaker 1: kind of hard quill version. Yeah. And I saw a
Speaker 1: conflicting information to um. I saw that they were born precocious,
Speaker 1: where they had a full set of teeth, their eyes
Speaker 1: were open, and then it just took a few hours
Speaker 1: for their quills to harden into like adult um quillage.
Speaker 1: That was even take to chuck. Yes, adult quillage. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that. Yeah, whether eyes were closed for a
Speaker 1: long time, yeah, yeah, So I don't know. It's possible
Speaker 1: it's different species. It's also possible as San Diego Zoo
Speaker 1: just got a bunch of stuff wrong. Well, that's always possible.
Speaker 1: Great Zoo, I've been there. Uh. I know, we did
Speaker 1: an episode on zoos and whether or not they were ethical,
Speaker 1: So you can go make up your own mind about that.
Speaker 1: But and there where Jack Hannah hailed from, and he
Speaker 1: is San Diego Zoo. Guy, I feel like that's probably true. Well,
Speaker 1: let's just say it is. I got something else on
Speaker 1: these quills. They have an I thought we I thought
Speaker 1: we were done with quills. I don't never done with quills.
Speaker 1: They have an antiseptic quality. Apparently in case of self stabbage.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I hadn't seen that actually, And I think
Speaker 1: we should say to um, just one more thing about quills.
Speaker 1: I'm breaking my own rules here because they're like modified hair.
Speaker 1: They grow back when they're shed. They're constantly shedding and
Speaker 1: growing quills. Yeah. And like I said, you should not
Speaker 1: approach one in the wild. But um, they make airy rabies.
Speaker 1: But other than that, they don't really carry any other
Speaker 1: diseases which I need. Yeah. Like if you wanted to
Speaker 1: love porcupines anymore, there you go, Like you could snuggle
Speaker 1: one and you don't have to worry about any diseases. Yes,
Speaker 1: but don't eat them like they do in some parts
Speaker 1: of the world. Um, they are in pretty good ape
Speaker 1: but they have been exterminated in certain parts of Africa.
Speaker 1: Um because they do eat root crops, so they're a
Speaker 1: nuisance pest, so they get rid of them. People can
Speaker 1: quillect quillect you like that. They can collect the quills
Speaker 1: for ornamentation. Um. And I think there's a couple of
Speaker 1: them that are listed as vulnerable. Uh and very sadly
Speaker 1: of course, because their habitat is being lost. Yes, But
Speaker 1: globally porcupines are under UM. They're considered of least concern um,
Speaker 1: which itself is concerning because they're considered pests in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, so they're eradicated. UM. I think it
Speaker 1: was the Maryland d n R, the Do Not Resuscitate
Speaker 1: Agency UM said that on their site that porcupines um
Speaker 1: used to be in the southeastern United States but they
Speaker 1: were eradicated. I didn't know that, and I've never heard that.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it anywhere else. But I don't know
Speaker 1: why the d NR would make that up. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think if I've ever seen one in the world.
Speaker 1: They do not live in the southeast. But the Maryland
Speaker 1: d NR is saying, like I've traveled all over the world.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying in my backyard. Oh, I got to well,
Speaker 1: we were talking about the southeast. You can imagine why
Speaker 1: I fell for that one. Now, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: think of a seen one like camping out west or anything.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if I've ever seen one.
Speaker 1: I never have. I would think you would definitely remember
Speaker 1: seeing a porcupine in real life. Probably armadillos everywhere everywhere,
Speaker 1: and you know they carry hands this disease, so don't
Speaker 1: get close to them. Porcupines don't carry any communicable diseases
Speaker 1: that humans are concerned about except Travis. Yeah, they can
Speaker 1: be rabid, but all mammals can be rabbid, you know,
Speaker 1: So should we talk about what happens? You know, if
Speaker 1: you just google porcupine and dog, you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot of very sad pictures of curious dogs who stuck
Speaker 1: their snout where they shouldn't and are barbed all over
Speaker 1: the nose and snout. Not good, no, um. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that you want to do and
Speaker 1: don't want to do if that happens to your dog,
Speaker 1: because it's actually really bad if that happens. So if
Speaker 1: your dog, if you ever see a porcupine on a
Speaker 1: hike with your dog, get your dog away from that porcupine,
Speaker 1: not just for the porcupine sake. Like if a porcupine
Speaker 1: goes into a defensive posture, it's scared to death. It's not.
Speaker 1: It might seem all tough and angry. It's scared. That's
Speaker 1: why it's doing that. But also it could really mess
Speaker 1: your dog up. So for at least your dogs, say,
Speaker 1: get your dog away from the porcupine. And if if
Speaker 1: you fail to do that quickly enough and your dog
Speaker 1: does take some quills in its face and its neck wherever. Um,
Speaker 1: those things can because especially on in the New World
Speaker 1: porcupine uh, that their quills have um barbs, they can
Speaker 1: migrate further and further inward. Um, they're not gonna work
Speaker 1: themselves out, They're gonna actually work themselves in. So you
Speaker 1: want to take your dog to a vet, like you
Speaker 1: your dog gets quilled, You get in the car, you
Speaker 1: go to the vet. That's the order of how everything happens.
Speaker 1: You don't stop and get a double cheeseburger. You don't
Speaker 1: like go home and like read the paper first, Like,
Speaker 1: you go straight to the vet because your dog's gonna
Speaker 1: need to go under general anesthesia, um to to have
Speaker 1: those things removed. That's how bad of a jam it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna amend that with your permission, um, because
Speaker 1: what the first thing you should do, and hopefully you're
Speaker 1: with someone else if you've got it. Really it would
Speaker 1: be great if you have two people in on this,
Speaker 1: one one to drive and one to keep your dog
Speaker 1: from messing with their face. Yeah, that's a big one,
Speaker 1: because they're gonna if there's quills poking in a dog's face,
Speaker 1: they're gonna paw at it. They're gonna try and rub
Speaker 1: their nose on the ground, and that is bad, bad, bad,
Speaker 1: bad bad, because those quills are just going to go
Speaker 1: further and further in. So you really really need to
Speaker 1: do your best to hold onto your dog, hold their
Speaker 1: head up, and keep their paws away from their face. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you said, go straight to that vet. Because
Speaker 1: you don't try and remove them yourself, you're not. You're
Speaker 1: only gonna make it worse. And that's like guaranteed. There's
Speaker 1: also supposedly a myth that if you clip the porcupine
Speaker 1: quill it deflates it and makes it easier to to
Speaker 1: to to come out. They don't. They're not inflated with air,
Speaker 1: so clipping it's not going to deflate anything. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it actually can make the quill shatter because imagine like, um,
Speaker 1: like a really hard claw or something like that being
Speaker 1: clipped with some scissors. It's going to shatter some um
Speaker 1: and if if enough of the piece shutters far enough down, um,
Speaker 1: it can reach the skin level. And then if it
Speaker 1: works its way in, all of a sudden, you just
Speaker 1: made it that much harder to get out because you
Speaker 1: just added a new barb, which is that shattered, jagged
Speaker 1: edge that used to be intact before you cut it
Speaker 1: like a knucklehead. Yeah, I mean I could see the
Speaker 1: instinct if you don't know what's going on on to
Speaker 1: be to clip them because if they're really long and
Speaker 1: sticking out of their face it looks terrible, or to
Speaker 1: try and just put yank them out, but do not
Speaker 1: don't do either one of those things. Um. Another big
Speaker 1: reason why is the risk of infection is really really big. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, they have multiple, multiple stab wounds essentially, and they,
Speaker 1: like you said, the only solution is general anesthesia. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's not surgery, but it's not not surgery now,
Speaker 1: and they they you know, some of these may not
Speaker 1: ever be able to come out, and your pets is
Speaker 1: going to have a lifetime of being monitored to make
Speaker 1: sure they don't migrate toward a joint or an organ
Speaker 1: or their the back of their eye, who knows, or
Speaker 1: depending on where they got stabbed with a quill. So UM.
Speaker 1: I think it was the A s p c. A
Speaker 1: that said the best way to to um to deal
Speaker 1: with this is to prevent it from ever happening. Just
Speaker 1: don't let your dog anywhere near a porcupine. It's just
Speaker 1: not worth the risk. And don't you're're gonna scare the
Speaker 1: porcupine too. Yeah, And if you live in porcupine country,
Speaker 1: don't ever let your dog out of the house. No,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, just keep it wrapped in
Speaker 1: bubble wrapping all time. Train them. Yeah, or just change
Speaker 1: the bubble wrapple and pee in the ball rap. Just
Speaker 1: have to get tons and tons of bubble wrap and
Speaker 1: then and don't throw it away, don't recycle it. Put
Speaker 1: it in a huge pile at the end of each
Speaker 1: season in your front yard and melt it with a blowtorch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. Maybe mix it with acid tone first. Um,
Speaker 1: I've got two more porcupine facts if you will indulge me.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Do you got anything else? I got
Speaker 1: nothing else. In the seventies, the seventies in the UK
Speaker 1: was a swing in time for porcupines, apparently because there
Speaker 1: was a population of Himalayan porcupines crested, I believe in
Speaker 1: South Devon in the wild because they'd escaped from the
Speaker 1: zoo sometime in the seventies and lived on the lamb
Speaker 1: for a decade. And the same thing happened in Staffordshire
Speaker 1: with a kind of crested porcupine where they had a
Speaker 1: wild population because they escaped from the zoo too. Is
Speaker 1: that near Stoke on Trent? No, no, we'll have to
Speaker 1: ask Tom. All right, if that's near Stoke on Trent.
Speaker 1: Are you got anything else again? I got nothing else? Okay,
Speaker 1: well let's say from porcupines. Everybody go watch Teddy Bear videos.
Speaker 1: You're gonna love them. Uh. And since I said Teddy Bears,
Speaker 1: time for a listener, mail man. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: turn up the volume on this. You're good. It's gonna
Speaker 1: knock your socks right at all I do this. Teddy
Speaker 1: Bear is probably on Instagram, I would imagine, but I
Speaker 1: do follow that groundhog on Instagram. Oh, Chunk, I think
Speaker 1: I knew. I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah, Chunk,
Speaker 1: the groundhog gets good stuff. Yeah, alright, so here we go.
Speaker 1: This is from Oh, this is from Don the Black Cowboy.
Speaker 1: Did you see this one? Oh? Yeah, this is It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: We did a short stuff on black cowboys in history
Speaker 1: and how they have long been overlooked. So, for some
Speaker 1: weird reason, you don't listen to short stuffs you should Yeah,
Speaker 1: we never kind of promote that, but it's just like
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, but it's shorter. Yeah, what's your problem? Listen?
Speaker 1: Hey guys, my name is Don and I'm my twenty
Speaker 1: five year old black cowboy from Texas. I, along with
Speaker 1: my brother, am also a second generation amateur ferrier as well.
Speaker 1: My father taught us after learning the trade growing up
Speaker 1: on our family farm, then later going into horse shoeing
Speaker 1: as a side career. When I saw your episode about blacksmithing,
Speaker 1: I was eager to hear if you mentioned ferriers in it,
Speaker 1: and I thought I might finally right in. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: when you came out with a black cowboy episode, all
Speaker 1: of my friends shared the episode with me, so I
Speaker 1: knew I had to write. As a kid, our family
Speaker 1: did trail rides, rodeos, and horse races nearly every weekend.
Speaker 1: Since leaving my hometown for college and beyond, I've often
Speaker 1: been uh, the first introduction to black cowboys slash farmers.
Speaker 1: For most people. There's a large community of black cowboys
Speaker 1: and farmers still surviving regardless of the systemic issues we face.
Speaker 1: Whenever it's safe again, I'd like to invite anyone hearing
Speaker 1: this out to our annual trail ride Easter weekend to
Speaker 1: get a chance to experience the lifestyle. Am that cool? Dude?
Speaker 1: I so want to do this. So he sent a
Speaker 1: flyer too, and it looks super interesting, it does. It
Speaker 1: looks awesome. Yeah, And so they hold it over Easter
Speaker 1: weekend and you just basically go live the cowboy life
Speaker 1: for a weekend. I love it. And it's like ten
Speaker 1: bucks or something like that too. Yeah, it's not like
Speaker 1: some city slicker scam. No, Don doesn't stick it to you.
Speaker 1: Don'll give it to you straight back, straight shooter, he says.
Speaker 1: Love the podcast really helped keep me company these last
Speaker 1: few years in the Peace Corps. So Don is my
Speaker 1: new most interesting man in the world. I think he
Speaker 1: is one of the more well rounded stuff you should
Speaker 1: know listeners we've heard from in a while. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he says, ps, Yes, I did ride my horse to school.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot, Don, Hats off
Speaker 1: to you, Tan Gallon hat even literally. Um, thank you
Speaker 1: for the invite. We may see you one of these
Speaker 1: Easter weekends and your trail ride. Um. And if you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, you can send
Speaker 1: us an email to the Stuff podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.