Speaker 1: It was a dark and stormy night just like this one.
Speaker 1: Exactly four years ago today minus four days that we
Speaker 1: released the porcupine episode. Oh sorry, Halloween's almost upon us,
Speaker 1: and I guess the spirit of the season got in me.
Speaker 1: At any rate. Here's our porcupine episode. We're proud of
Speaker 1: all of our animal episodes, but this one in particular
Speaker 1: really takes the cake. So enjoy it with some cake.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know about porcupines, which this is a
Speaker 1: great idea. Chuck, good job.
Speaker 2: You know, the pine when you take away all those quills,
Speaker 2: is just a cute little guinea pig.
Speaker 1: Basically a giant one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a cute big guinea pig.
Speaker 1: Speaking of cute porcupines, Dude, do you remember Teddy Bear
Speaker 1: the porcupine kind of went a little viral a few
Speaker 1: years ago. No, you have to watch Teddy Bear the Porcupine,
Speaker 1: specifically Teddy Bear the Porcupine doesn't like to share on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and it is this porcupine eating corn on the cob
Speaker 1: and making all these sounds like cousin it and it
Speaker 1: is one of the cutest things I've ever seen in
Speaker 1: my entire life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to shout out Live Science, Smithsonian, Mental Floss,
Speaker 2: the San Diego Zoo, and a couple of other websites
Speaker 2: that I coupled together this wonderful bit on one of
Speaker 2: our wonderful animal friends in the world. We'd love to
Speaker 2: do these shows. It just made me think, have you
Speaker 2: seen the octopus documentary thing yet?
Speaker 1: No? I haven't. I've been like kind of popping up
Speaker 1: in my in my periphery, but I don't really know
Speaker 1: what it is. Is it just about OCTOPI.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's called My Octopus Teacher. I haven't seen
Speaker 2: it yet, but I just know that the dealer, this
Speaker 2: guy kind of gets to know one octopus and that's right.
Speaker 2: You know, A nice story ensues, is all I know.
Speaker 1: That's neat. We'll have to watch that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't. I can't wait. But and I mentioned
Speaker 2: that because you know, we've long said that the octopus
Speaker 2: is our favorite animal. But I feel like almost every
Speaker 2: time we've done one on an animal, it's on something
Speaker 2: that we love, and boy do I love the quill pig.
Speaker 1: I do too. Yeah, apparently that's what the their Latin
Speaker 1: name means, quill pig.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: That's great, That is fantastic. And it turns out, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that there are basically two groups that porcupines get lumped into.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of different GENI yeah, that's right, and speace.
Speaker 1: But they basically fall under two categories. It's Old World,
Speaker 1: which is Europe, Africa, Asia, and the New World, which
Speaker 1: is North, South, and Central America. And if you saw
Speaker 1: a you know, porcupine in South America and you saw
Speaker 1: one in you know, the Himalayas, you probably would be like,
Speaker 1: that's porcupine. That's porcupine too. They're not radically different like
Speaker 1: some Old World and New World's animals are.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But something I saw that was interesting was that
Speaker 2: they evolved separately what one of those what is it
Speaker 2: called co evolutions or whatever.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't see that. That's that is crazy.
Speaker 2: I saw that, and I only saw it in one place, so.
Speaker 1: I think that might have been a personal hypothesis of
Speaker 1: somebody who got them, maybe website.
Speaker 2: I saw it somewhere though, and then that the two
Speaker 2: actually the Old World in the New World have less
Speaker 2: in common then they do individually with like some other
Speaker 2: rodents in their area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm actually not surprised to hear that. But
Speaker 1: the one thing that they do have in common across
Speaker 1: the board is that they have quills, and that they
Speaker 1: use their quills defensively. Now what their quills look like,
Speaker 1: how they use their quills. There's a lot of other
Speaker 1: distinctions and differences between Old World and New World, but
Speaker 1: they all have quills. They're all porcupines. That seems to
Speaker 1: be the thing that binds them. It's the tie that
Speaker 1: binds that family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just it's easy to take the porcupine
Speaker 2: for granted, I think, and just say, yeah, the little
Speaker 2: animal with all those quills. But when you take a
Speaker 2: step back and look at it and think about the
Speaker 2: evolution of the porcupine that, like I said, it sort
Speaker 2: of would be a very large, sort of cute, little
Speaker 2: fluffy guinea pig, but it probably got eaten a lot.
Speaker 2: And then you know, they said nuts to this nature
Speaker 2: steps in It is like, all right, how about this.
Speaker 2: What if we were just animal pincushions such that if
Speaker 2: you came anywhere near us, you would be stabbed repeatedly
Speaker 2: if you tried to eat us, Like, It's one of
Speaker 2: the most amazing evolutionary adaptations I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean they can really use those things too.
Speaker 1: There's a long standing myth that they can shoot them,
Speaker 1: which is not true, but apparently even Aristotle fell for
Speaker 1: that one, and what a dummy. But they can use
Speaker 1: them in some pretty interesting ways. And you hit the
Speaker 1: nail on the head when you said, you know, step
Speaker 1: back if you see a porcupine. That is good advice.
Speaker 1: You should probably step back because depending on the species
Speaker 1: or whether it's an Old world or New world, those
Speaker 1: quills can mess you up pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But also you know, get nearby and take a look,
Speaker 2: like they're not going to come after you. The porcupine
Speaker 2: is a very kind hearted animal. Yeah, and those are
Speaker 2: one hundred percent for defense. A porcupine is never going
Speaker 2: to charge you, and you know, leap at your belly
Speaker 2: to put quills all in your stomach. So take a
Speaker 2: little look, admire it for what it is. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, to talk about porcupines, a lot of this
Speaker 2: is talking about the old world versus the rush version.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the big differences that I saw and there's
Speaker 1: lots of differences between different species within each of these groups,
Speaker 1: but the Old World versus New World have some big
Speaker 1: differences between them, and one of them is that Old
Speaker 1: World are typically terrestrial porcupines. They spend most of their
Speaker 1: lives on the ground. They live in burrows or caves
Speaker 1: or rock dens, and New World porcupines they live on
Speaker 1: the ground too, they live in burrows, but they're also
Speaker 1: very capable of climbing trees, and they'll spend a significant
Speaker 1: amount of time and sometimes nests in trees. And there
Speaker 1: are some species that spend virtually their whole lies in trees,
Speaker 1: almost like sloths.
Speaker 2: Yeah, quill wise, the New World porcupines quills are going
Speaker 2: to be shorter and smaller in general. I think they're
Speaker 2: about four to ten four inches ten centimeters. The Old
Speaker 2: World dudes and ladies they can get very long. They
Speaker 2: can have quills up to twenty inches long. They can
Speaker 2: be marked with black and white bands. And what they
Speaker 2: can do is these Old World guys can puff them
Speaker 2: up so they stand up and are more intimidating and look. Also,
Speaker 2: I mean it's weird because it's like multifold, like four
Speaker 2: or five different things they do. By doing this, they
Speaker 2: look larger, so that's always something that vulnerable animals try
Speaker 2: to do in the wild. They look like a skunk
Speaker 2: a little bit because of the black and white marking
Speaker 2: down their back.
Speaker 1: They actually have a defensive musk kind of like a skunk,
Speaker 1: which is not nearly as bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they try to imitate a skunk a little bit.
Speaker 2: They look bigger, They rattle, They can shake those things
Speaker 2: and rattle them, which is another great adaptation to say
Speaker 2: like get away from me, don't try and eat me.
Speaker 1: And supposedly that works pretty well too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And then if all else fails, they are stabby.
Speaker 1: They are stabby. So sometimes the old world ones will
Speaker 1: actually charge backwards toward a predator if they're feeling like
Speaker 1: they want to stand their ground, and that's usually when
Speaker 1: they're caught out in the open. If they have a
Speaker 1: place to hide, they'll stick their head in that place
Speaker 1: to hide and then puff out their quills and make
Speaker 1: themselves hard to get at. But if they're out in
Speaker 1: the open, they may decide that they're going to fight
Speaker 1: off this predator and they'll charge backward. And one other
Speaker 1: adaptation I saw, which I thought was awesome. They'll have
Speaker 1: the predator chase it, and then they'll stop all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, and the predator will run into them in
Speaker 1: their quills for real.
Speaker 2: And then you hear the sound effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and then it's too late.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because those quills, even though
Speaker 2: they puff them out, they are pointed generally in the
Speaker 2: reverse direction, right, which you know, which is why they
Speaker 2: have to back up into something to quill them or
Speaker 2: like you said, bury them, just throwing that parking break
Speaker 2: real quick, and all of a sudden, that fox has
Speaker 2: got a face full of quill, right.
Speaker 1: So that Old World contains a couple of species that
Speaker 1: are called crested porcupines, and they basically look like if
Speaker 1: the quills were like an umbrella. It opens at the
Speaker 1: back of their head, yeah, and just kind of sticks
Speaker 1: out like that, and like you said, it makes them
Speaker 1: look a lot bigger. They're a lot more dangerous. The
Speaker 1: big difference with quills between the Old World and the
Speaker 1: New World, in addition to being shorter, is Old World
Speaker 1: porcupines are covered in quills. That's all they have. They're
Speaker 1: like they have like I don't know if we said
Speaker 1: or not, but quills are just modified hair. They're made
Speaker 1: a carratin. They're just like hair. They're just way stabbier
Speaker 1: than hair that you and I have.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like hair Mead's fingernails basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And Old
Speaker 1: World porcupines, that's all they have are quills. New World
Speaker 1: porcupines have quills that are also mixed in with fur
Speaker 1: like an undercoat, longer hairs, and their quills kind of
Speaker 1: stand up and are used for defense. That's not just
Speaker 1: it's not all that they have. And the other thing
Speaker 1: about their quills is that they have little barbs, and
Speaker 1: New World porcupines barbs make their New World quills way
Speaker 1: more dangerous than Old World quills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like little fish hook basically, and it'll instead
Speaker 2: of just poking right into you, it'll actually snag in
Speaker 2: your flesh and makes it, like you said, way way
Speaker 2: tougher to get out, a much harder time removing a
Speaker 2: New World quill than an Old World quill. Right, But
Speaker 2: those New World guys are because their quills start further back.
Speaker 2: You get the feeling if you just and I wouldn't
Speaker 2: recommend this, but if you just go very gently and
Speaker 2: just say, hey, little guy, no do that. I just
Speaker 2: I just want to give you a stretch under the
Speaker 2: under the chin, and I think you might enjoy it.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna move very slowly. Just don't turn around,
Speaker 2: and you'll you'll have a really good time.
Speaker 1: I'd like to include a disclaimer here, don't do it.
Speaker 1: You guys should not listen to Chuck right now. He's
Speaker 1: doling out some really terrible advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just because those quills start further back. They
Speaker 2: got that cute little head and face, and it just
Speaker 2: makes you want to give him a scritch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, totally. Like if you watch Teddy Teddy Bear
Speaker 1: videos Teddy Bear the Porcupine, you will want to go
Speaker 1: get one as a pet. There's another one I saw
Speaker 1: called Diva, and she's a baby porcupine. She's adorable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you totally want to do that, and I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are 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 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 five pounds,
Speaker 1: it's like a large dog. Yeah, and with quills though, uh,
Speaker 1: with the quills puffed up, No, like they're sixty five
Speaker 1: pounds year round. And then but imagine a sixty five
Speaker 1: pound dog with those quills. That's dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I meant. I know they don't actually weigh
Speaker 2: more when they puff up, but they can. When they
Speaker 2: puff those quills out, they can look two to three
Speaker 2: times their size. So right, yeah, yeah, I imagine that
Speaker 2: thing looks enormous. And actually I don't do this much,
Speaker 2: but I'm watching that thing eat that corn on the
Speaker 2: cop right now.
Speaker 1: Isn't that adorable?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I have to have the sound down, so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go back and watch it.
Speaker 1: You have to hear this, like the sound does it?
Speaker 1: But even without the sound, he's just awfully cute. Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of They kind of look like Beaver's
Speaker 2: a little bit too, and they are related as fellow rodents. Here.
Speaker 2: I think we should take a break. I'm getting kind
Speaker 2: of worked up here, and we'll come back and talk
Speaker 2: more about these cute little stabby suckers right after this.
Speaker 1: Okay, Charles, we're back, and we've been talking mostly about quills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one more thing about quills, and there's gonna
Speaker 2: be more than one more thing about quills, let's be honest.
Speaker 2: But we said they couldn't shoot him. What they can do?
Speaker 2: These things do fall out just like hair, and they
Speaker 2: grow just like fingernails and will eventually fall so when
Speaker 2: they shake, they if they have loose quills, they can
Speaker 2: fly off. But they're still not like shooting, like Aristotle said,
Speaker 2: like deadly needle darts.
Speaker 1: No, but they can be problematic, like these things can
Speaker 1: puncture the sidewalls of tires. I was reading the blog
Speaker 1: of some tire company ka L Tires, I think up
Speaker 1: in the Yukon, and they said that it's actually it
Speaker 1: can be a problem if you run over one, like
Speaker 1: on some roads. Yeah that if you're out in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere and you run over a porcupine quill
Speaker 1: you're you're probably going to get a flat that's how
Speaker 1: tough those things are.
Speaker 2: Well, that's sad.
Speaker 1: What for your tire? No for the afternoon? Well, no,
Speaker 1: you're not running over Are you still watching Teddy Bear videos?
Speaker 2: No? I thought you said if you run over a porcupine,
Speaker 2: it can porcupine quill? Oh well, I mean what is it?
Speaker 2: Just a loose quill on the road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, That's what I'm saying. Like, just a loose
Speaker 1: quill laying on the road. If you run over it
Speaker 1: goes into your sidewall, You're probably going to get a
Speaker 1: flat tire. That's how tough those things are.
Speaker 2: Okay, I thought you. And if you actually run over
Speaker 2: a porcupine and you have like a bunch of quills, that.
Speaker 1: Would probably do it too, especially if the porcupine was
Speaker 1: in a defensive procedure. But the porcupine doesn't have to
Speaker 1: die in this case for you to give a flat tire.
Speaker 2: So regardless of that sadness they there is sadness in that,
Speaker 2: despite this great adaptation and this great defense mechanism, they
Speaker 2: still can be hunted. Lions can still hunt them human people.
Speaker 2: There's the bush meat trade for the Old World porcupines
Speaker 2: that is, you know, just you know what that means,
Speaker 2: and they're you know, there are owls, wolverines, pythons. There's
Speaker 2: something called a fissure that looks sort of like a weasel, bear,
Speaker 2: fox or something. Did you look that thing up?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's related to otters and weasels.
Speaker 2: Okay, but it had a little sort of a bear face.
Speaker 2: It was interesting.
Speaker 1: But apparently stink too.
Speaker 2: Well. They stink in more ways than one because they
Speaker 2: learned to flip these porcupines over where they had that
Speaker 2: soft belly meat and no quills as a way to
Speaker 2: attack them, which really makes me mad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't. I don't like fishes for that reason either.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of them until recently, until we started
Speaker 1: researching this, I had neither. I don't like them. No,
Speaker 1: I just don't like them. Eat something else, Yeah, leave
Speaker 1: the porcupines alone, because they're actually pretty nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they don't eat what do they eat? They
Speaker 2: eat vegetables and fruits and berries and nuts and tubers
Speaker 2: and roots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they eat all those things. They'll also eat crops,
Speaker 1: which is Porcupines are considered a nuisance, especially if you're
Speaker 1: a farmer or even a gardener in the suburbs, because
Speaker 1: they will eat your root vegetables. They will eat corn,
Speaker 1: love corn, apparently. But they'll also they have another thing too,
Speaker 1: where they need sodium in their diet. They acted they
Speaker 1: need a pretty even ratio of one to one of
Speaker 1: potassium to sodium for their electrical conductivity in their body
Speaker 1: to work. But they don't give much sodium in their diet.
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: The salt that we put on the roads gets kicked
Speaker 1: up on the underside of our car, so you might
Speaker 1: find a porcupine chewing on the tires or the hoses
Speaker 1: or belts or wires under your car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else that they would even because the humans
Speaker 2: sweat so much salt when they're working that they'll go Like,
Speaker 2: if you have some wooden pruners in your shed, they'll
Speaker 2: go in there and they'll start eating the handle of
Speaker 2: your pruners because it just has residual human salt left
Speaker 2: over on it.
Speaker 1: Right, you just walk in, You're like, are you nuts?
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? You?
Speaker 2: Porcupine just set up a salt like for those fellas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they'll find anywhere they can find a natural salt, like,
Speaker 1: they'll definitely eat that too. But yes, anything that has
Speaker 1: human sweat on, even trace amounts of human sweat, they'll
Speaker 1: go bonkers. Like they eat oars, paddles, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But yes, typically they eat leaves, stems, they eat shoots
Speaker 1: and leaves. They also, though, and this is another reason
Speaker 1: why they're considered a nuisance, they eat the bark off
Speaker 1: of the tree. So they're considered generalists. They'll eat just
Speaker 1: about any kind of vegetation, which is actually and they're
Speaker 1: also super adaptable, which is why you'll find porcupines almost
Speaker 1: anywhere there's vegetation. But they'll that's what they eat, you know,
Speaker 1: in spring, summer, fall, and then in winter. They don't hibernate,
Speaker 1: which actually makes them kind of unusual as well. But
Speaker 1: they go from being generalists to what's known as faculative specialists,
Speaker 1: meaning their diet becomes very limited to just one or
Speaker 1: two types of trees. And not just one or two
Speaker 1: types of trees. During the winter, they may just feed
Speaker 1: on the inner bark of one tree, and that can
Speaker 1: be problematic because the inner bark is where nutrients and
Speaker 1: water moves from the roots to the rest of the tree.
Speaker 1: And if that porcupine eats all the way around it,
Speaker 1: what's called girdling a tree, it can kill or seriously
Speaker 1: damage that tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I I mean, if you have a problem,
Speaker 2: if you live in the woods and stuff and you
Speaker 2: see a tree, it could be a beaver, but either way,
Speaker 2: you kind of handle it the same. You can wrap
Speaker 2: like chicken wire around it around the bottom, or some
Speaker 2: sort of aluminum or something sheeting to keep the beaver
Speaker 2: and or porcupine from non on that thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would guess you'd want to wear work
Speaker 1: gloves because the salt from the sweat and your hands
Speaker 1: is just going to attract them to that chicken wire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they eat. They're nocturnal, so they're mainly doing this
Speaker 2: stuff at night. They're patrolling around, they're defending their areas
Speaker 2: that they feed.
Speaker 1: I saw both. I saw that they're territorial. I saw
Speaker 1: that they're also not territorial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it probably depends with you know, so many different species,
Speaker 2: because they will travel outside their home range if they
Speaker 2: want to get a mate or if they need that salt.
Speaker 2: They're usually they're fairly solo flyers, although sometimes you'll see
Speaker 2: a couple of them. They may be mated, they may
Speaker 2: be siblings. I don't think we mentioned that the Old
Speaker 2: World porcupines are actually really good swimmers.
Speaker 1: Both of them are, from what I understand.
Speaker 2: Oh really m hmm, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and New World will actually go swim out to
Speaker 1: gather 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're they're living in they don't. They'll like
Speaker 2: sleep in trees sometimes the climbers will, but it seems
Speaker 2: like they make use of other animals dens when they're
Speaker 2: not around and they have left, Like they'll go to
Speaker 2: an ardvark den that has been abandoned or a hole
Speaker 2: and they will change it around, maybe knock down some walls,
Speaker 2: open up that floor plan. Yeah, so to island in
Speaker 2: the kitchen, Yeah, of course, gotta have the big island. Sure,
Speaker 2: And then you know they'll just adapt it to their
Speaker 2: needs because obviously they're a little puffier than the ardvark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in doing so, Chuck, a question that I
Speaker 1: kept running up against was what role did porcupines play
Speaker 1: in the ecosystem? And they think that one of the
Speaker 1: big roles they play is by basically disturbing stuff. They
Speaker 1: disturb the soil when they're digging and burrowing and everything
Speaker 1: so interesting. And they found that they the through that
Speaker 1: they propagate way more seeds than would otherwise be propagated
Speaker 1: if they weren't around. So forests are much more diverse
Speaker 1: with them in it than without them because of all
Speaker 1: of their scratching and moving and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seems like for rodents they live a
Speaker 2: long time. They can live in the wild. I mean,
Speaker 2: I sort of saw a wild range anywhere from I
Speaker 2: did two three to five years in the wild to
Speaker 2: like ten years in the wild. I saw one that
Speaker 2: lived to be eighteen. I saw the record was twenty five,
Speaker 2: which I think was second only to a beaver as
Speaker 2: far as the rodent record. I think there was a
Speaker 2: twenty eight year old beaver.
Speaker 1: Once I saw one in Brazil was can live up
Speaker 1: to twenty seven years in captivity. Oh wow, yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's long lived. But yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: three to five years too. I guess it just depends
Speaker 1: on the species, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the other thing about their feeding habits is
Speaker 2: they eat seasonally. They're little hipsters. They eat seasonally and locally,
Speaker 2: So depending on what's there, they will I think in
Speaker 2: the winter they'll eat more evergreen needles and the like
Speaker 2: sort of the inner bark of the trees and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. And then you know, when those sweet berries
Speaker 2: come around or when that corn crop is coming in,
Speaker 2: just look.
Speaker 1: Out, then they turn back into generalists.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: So I feel like we cannot go any further, can't
Speaker 1: dance around the fact that porcupines copulate, and when they
Speaker 1: do copulate, they produce offspring, and we should talk about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, should we break or should we do this and
Speaker 2: then break?
Speaker 1: I feel like we're gonna need to take a break
Speaker 1: after this. Okay.
Speaker 2: So porcupines have stabby quills.
Speaker 1: That's that point backwards.
Speaker 2: That's right. And if you know how a rodent and
Speaker 2: a mammal like this would have sex, it is from
Speaker 2: something a male approaching the female from the rear right
Speaker 2: where those things are pointing, and so you think, how
Speaker 2: do they do this? What happens is the males are
Speaker 2: gonna they're gonna vie for the female. Like so many animals,
Speaker 2: they have these sort of noisy battles, and they whine
Speaker 2: and they stomp when they win and stomp their tail
Speaker 2: and try to impress the lady, puff their quills out.
Speaker 2: And if the lady says, all right, I think you
Speaker 2: might be a good match for me, what does he do?
Speaker 1: He sprays urine all over her. That's right, and she goes,
Speaker 1: She goes, that was wonderful. Let's go, big boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna put I'm gonna lay down my quills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and move the tail to the side.
Speaker 2: It's business time, right, Yeah, because the jail is barbed.
Speaker 2: I don't think we said that either.
Speaker 1: No, but like all the quills are barbed, right.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I think the actual tail is barbed.
Speaker 1: Oh, good lord as well.
Speaker 2: Which can help with the climbing and stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, So I think it would take being sprayed with
Speaker 1: your end. You would want to reach that level of
Speaker 1: commitment to make sure that you could trust that that
Speaker 1: barbed is going to be kept to the side. Will
Speaker 1: we really are we in, right, and then yes, that
Speaker 1: that definitely says yes, you're in. You're in. Get it. Yep,
Speaker 1: I told you we would need a break. Let's take one,
Speaker 1: shall we.
Speaker 2: All right, and we'll talk about uh, we'll talk about
Speaker 2: porcupets right after this.
Speaker 1: So, Chuck, the porcupines have copulated. They were successful, and
Speaker 1: the female has now just stated for two hundred and
Speaker 1: five to two hundred and seventeen days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what did you say?
Speaker 1: We're just born porcupets like he tte s.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not pets is in something you keep. But yeah,
Speaker 2: little porcupets.
Speaker 1: Like like the fifties singing group girl version of the.
Speaker 2: Porcupines, Randy Porcupine and the porcupts right exactly. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: here's where it got a little confusing, because I saw
Speaker 2: different stuff depending on where I looked, and again it
Speaker 2: maybe according to species. I saw that they rarely have
Speaker 2: more than one at a time. I also saw that
Speaker 2: sometimes they have up to four, but let's just say
Speaker 2: between one and four per litter. And they stay with
Speaker 2: their their mommies for a little longer than what I found.
Speaker 2: It says, and I think from the San Diego Zoo
Speaker 2: just a few months. But I also saw anywhere from
Speaker 2: twelve to twenty four months, and they at least need
Speaker 2: that mother's milk for like six months.
Speaker 1: And I think it really depends on the species. Like
Speaker 1: I saw those the largest ones, the cape porcupine, they
Speaker 1: actually stay in family units of a mom and a
Speaker 1: dad in one to two kids.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, and the dad's usually out of there with
Speaker 2: a porky right 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 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you think the porcupet as soft and
Speaker 2: cute as you would imagine, you were correct. Those needle
Speaker 2: like quills start to stiffen up very quickly, but it
Speaker 2: takes it kind of starts three or four days later,
Speaker 2: and then I imagine takes a little while to reach
Speaker 2: full you know, kind of hard quill version.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I saw conflicting information too. I saw that
Speaker 1: they were born precocious, where they had a full set
Speaker 1: of teeth, their eyes were open, and then it just
Speaker 1: took a few hours for their quills to harden end
Speaker 1: of like adult quillage. That was even take two chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: adult quillage. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also their eyes were closed.
Speaker 1: For a long time. Yeah. Yeah, So I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's possible it's different species. It's also possible the San
Speaker 1: Diego Zoo just got a bunch of stuff wrong.
Speaker 2: Well, that's always possible. Great zoo, I've been there. I
Speaker 2: know we did an episode on zoos and whether or
Speaker 2: not they were ethical, so you can go make up
Speaker 2: your own mind about that.
Speaker 1: But and then where Jack Hannah hailed from, wasn't he
Speaker 1: a San Diego Zoo?
Speaker 2: Guy, I feel like that's probably true.
Speaker 1: Let's just say it is.
Speaker 2: I got something else on these quills. They have an anti.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I thought we were done with quillo.
Speaker 2: Said no, no, never done with quills. Okay, they have an
Speaker 2: antiseptic quality, apparently in case of self stavage.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I hadn't seen that actually, and I think
Speaker 1: we should say too. 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 are constantly shedding
Speaker 1: and growing quills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like I said, you should not approach one
Speaker 2: in the wild. But they make harry rabies. But other
Speaker 2: than that, they don't really carry any other diseases, which
Speaker 2: we need.
Speaker 1: To worry them. Yeah, Like if you wanted to love
Speaker 1: porcupines anymore, there you go, Like you could snuggle one
Speaker 1: and you don't have to worry about any diseases.
Speaker 2: Yes, but don't eat them like they do. In some
Speaker 2: parts of the world they are in pretty good shape.
Speaker 2: But they have been exterminated in certain parts of Africa
Speaker 2: because they do eat root crops, so they're a nuisance pests,
Speaker 2: so they get rid of them. People can collect you
Speaker 2: like that. They can collect the quills for ornamentation. And
Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of them that are listed
Speaker 2: as vulnerable and very sadly of course, because their habitat
Speaker 2: is being lost.
Speaker 1: Yes, bug. Globally, porcupines are under they're considered of least concern,
Speaker 1: which itself is concerning because they're considered pests in a
Speaker 1: lot of places, so they're eradicated. I think it was
Speaker 1: the Maryland DNR that Do Not Resuscitate Agency said that
Speaker 1: on their site that porcupines used to be in the
Speaker 1: southeastern United States but they were eradicated. I didn't know that,
Speaker 1: and I've never heard that, and I couldn't find it
Speaker 1: anywhere else. But I don't know why the DNR would
Speaker 1: make that up.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think if I've ever seen one in
Speaker 2: the wild.
Speaker 1: They do not live in the Southeast. But the Maryland
Speaker 1: DNR is saying, like.
Speaker 2: I've traveled all over the world. I'm not saying in
Speaker 2: my backyard.
Speaker 1: Oh, I got you. Well, we were talking about the Southeast.
Speaker 1: You can imagine why I fell for that one.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just trying to think of I've seen one
Speaker 2: like camping out west or anything. I know I've ever
Speaker 2: seen one.
Speaker 1: I never have. I would think you would definitely remember
Speaker 1: seeing a porcupine in real life.
Speaker 2: Probably armadillos everywhere, yeah.
Speaker 1: Everywhere, And you know they carry Hanson's 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 rabies. Yeah, they can
Speaker 1: be rabbid, but all mammals can be rabbid, you.
Speaker 2: Know, So should we talk about what happens? You know,
Speaker 2: if you just google porcupine and dog, you're gonna get
Speaker 2: a lot of very sad pictures of curious dogs who
Speaker 2: stuck their snout where they shouldn't and are barbed all
Speaker 2: over the nose and snout. Not good.
Speaker 1: No, And there's a lot of things that you want
Speaker 1: to do and don't want to do. Yeah, if that
Speaker 1: happens to your dog, because it's actually really bad if
Speaker 1: that happens. So if your dog is if you ever
Speaker 1: see a porcupine on a hike with your dog, get
Speaker 1: your dog away from that porcupine, not just for the
Speaker 1: porcupine's sake, Like if a porcupine goes into a defensive
Speaker 1: it's scared to death. It's not. It might seem all
Speaker 1: tough and angry. It's scared. That's why it's doing that,
Speaker 1: But also it could really mess your dog up. So
Speaker 1: for at least your dog's sake, get your dog away
Speaker 1: from the porcupine. And if you fail to do that
Speaker 1: quickly enough and your dog does take some quills in
Speaker 1: its face and its neck wherever those things can because
Speaker 1: especially in the New World porcupine that their quills have barbs,
Speaker 1: they can migrate further and further inward. They're not going
Speaker 1: to work themselves out, they're going to actually work themselves in.
Speaker 1: So you want to take your dog to a vet,
Speaker 1: Like your dog gets quilled, you get in the car,
Speaker 1: you go to the vet. That's the order of how
Speaker 1: everything happens. You don't stop and get a double cheeseburger.
Speaker 1: You don't 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 to have those things removed.
Speaker 1: That's how bad of a jam it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually going to amend that with your permission,
Speaker 2: because what the first thing you should do, and hopefully
Speaker 2: you're with someone else if you've got it. Really it
Speaker 2: would be great if you have two people in on this,
Speaker 2: one one to drive and one to keep your dog
Speaker 2: from messing with their face. Yeah, that's a big one,
Speaker 2: because they're gonna if there's quills poking in a dog's face,
Speaker 2: they're gonna paw at it. They're going to try and
Speaker 2: rub their nose on the ground, and that is bad, bad, bad,
Speaker 2: bad bad, because those quills are just going to go
Speaker 2: further and further in. So you really really need to
Speaker 2: do your best to hold onto your dog, hold their
Speaker 2: head up, and keep their paws away from their face. Uh.
Speaker 2: And like you said, go straight to that vet, because
Speaker 2: you don't try and remove them yourself, you're you're only
Speaker 2: going to make it worse. And that's like guaranteed.
Speaker 1: There's also supposedly a myth that if you clip the
Speaker 1: porcupine quill it deflates it and makes it easier to
Speaker 1: come out. They don't. They're not inflated with air. No,
Speaker 1: so clipping it's not going to deflate any is that Aristotle? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it actually can make the quill shatter, because imagine
Speaker 1: like a really hard claw or something like that being
Speaker 1: clipped with some scissors. It's going to shatter some and
Speaker 1: if enough of a piece shutters far enough down, it
Speaker 1: can reach the skin level. And then if it works
Speaker 1: its way in, all of a sudden, you just made
Speaker 1: it that much harder to get out because you just
Speaker 1: added a new barb, which is that shattered jagged edge
Speaker 1: that used to be intact before you cut it like
Speaker 1: a knucklehead.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I could see the instinct if you
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on, to be to clip them
Speaker 2: because if they're really long and sticking out of their
Speaker 2: face it looks terrible, or to try and just yank
Speaker 2: them out. But to do yeah, don't do either one
Speaker 2: of those things. Another big reason why is the risk
Speaker 2: of infection is really really big. I mean, they have multiple,
Speaker 2: multiple stab wounds essentially, and they, like you said, the
Speaker 2: only solution is general anesthesia. I mean it's it's not surgery,
Speaker 2: but it's not not surgery.
Speaker 1: No, and 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 the back of their eye who knows, or depending
Speaker 1: on where they got stabbed with a quill. So I
Speaker 1: think it was the ASPCA that said the best way
Speaker 1: to deal with this is to prevent it from ever happening.
Speaker 1: Just don't let your dog anywhere near a porcupine. It's
Speaker 1: just a not worth the risk. Yeah, and don't you're
Speaker 1: going to scare the porcupine too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you live in porcupine country, don't ever
Speaker 2: let your dog out of the house.
Speaker 1: No, as a matter of fact, just keep it wrapped
Speaker 1: and bubble wrap at all times.
Speaker 2: Toilet train them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or just change the bubble wrap and I'm peeling
Speaker 1: the bowl rap.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just have to get tons and tons of bubble wrap.
Speaker 2: And then don't throw it away, don't recycle it. Put
Speaker 2: it in a huge pile at the end of each
Speaker 2: season in your front yard and melt it with a blowtorch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. Maybe mix it with acidtone first. Yes,
Speaker 1: I've got two more porcupine facts if you will indulge me.
Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
Speaker 1: You got anything else?
Speaker 2: I got nothing else.
Speaker 1: In the seventies, the seventies in the UK was a
Speaker 1: swing in time for porcupines, apparently because there was a
Speaker 1: population of Himalayan porcupines crested I believe in South Devon
Speaker 1: in the wild, because they'd escaped from the zoo sometime
Speaker 1: in the seventies and lived on the lamb for a decade.
Speaker 1: And the same thing happened in Staffordshire with a kind
Speaker 1: of crested porcupine where they had a wild population because
Speaker 1: they escaped from the zoo too.
Speaker 2: Is that near Stoke on Trent?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, we'll have to ask Tom. All right, if
Speaker 1: that's near Stoke on Trent, all right, you got anything
Speaker 1: else again?
Speaker 2: I got nothing else?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well let's say for porcupines. Everybody go watch Teddy
Speaker 1: Bear videos. You're gonna love them. And since I said
Speaker 1: teddy Bear, it's time for a listener.
Speaker 2: Mail Man, I can't wait to turn up the volume
Speaker 2: on this.
Speaker 1: You're it's gonna knock your socks right off.
Speaker 2: I do this. Teddy Bear is probably on an Instagram,
Speaker 2: I would imagine, but I do follow that groundhog on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Oh I Chunk, I think I know. I think I
Speaker 1: know who you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chunk the Groundhog. It's good stuff. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: so here we go. This is from Oh, this is
Speaker 2: from Don the Black Cowboy. Did you see this one?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. We did a short stuff on black cowboys
Speaker 2: in history and how they have long been overlooked. So
Speaker 2: for some weird reason, you don't listen to short stuffs.
Speaker 2: You should. Yeah, we never kind of promote that, but
Speaker 2: it's just like stuff you should know. But it's shorter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's your problem? Listen?
Speaker 2: Hey guys. My name is Don and I'm a twenty
Speaker 2: five year old black cowboy from Texas. I, along with
Speaker 2: my brother, am also a second generation amateur farrier as well.
Speaker 2: My father taught us after learning the trade growing up
Speaker 2: on our family farm, then later going into horse shoeing
Speaker 2: as a side career. When I saw your episode about blacksmithing,
Speaker 2: I was eager to hear if you mentioned farriers in
Speaker 2: it and thought I might finally write in. Then when
Speaker 2: you came out with a black cowboy episode, all of
Speaker 2: my friends shared the episode with me, so I knew
Speaker 2: I had to write. As a kid, our family did
Speaker 2: trail rides, rodeos, and horse races nearly every weekend. Since
Speaker 2: leaving my hometown for college and beyond, I've often been
Speaker 2: the first introduction to black cowboys slash farmers. For most people,
Speaker 2: there's a large community of black cowboys and farmers still surviving,
Speaker 2: regardless of the systemic issues we face. Whenever it's safe again,
Speaker 2: I'd like to invite anyone hearing this out to our
Speaker 2: annual trail ride Easter weekend to get a chance to
Speaker 2: experience the lifestyle. Isn't that cool, dude, I so want
Speaker 2: to do this.
Speaker 1: So we sent a flyer too, and it looks super interesting.
Speaker 2: It does. It looks awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So they hold it over Easter weekend and you
Speaker 1: just basically go live the cowboy life for a weekend.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: And it's like ten bucks or something like that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not like some city slicker scam.
Speaker 1: No, Don doesn't stick it to you, Don, I'll give
Speaker 1: it to you straight.
Speaker 2: That's right, Kimbox, straight shooter, he says. Love. The podcast
Speaker 2: really helped keep me company these last few years in
Speaker 2: the Peace Corps. So Don is my new most interesting
Speaker 2: man in the world. I think he is.
Speaker 1: One of the more well rounded Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: listeners we've heard from in a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he says, ps, yes, I did ride my
Speaker 2: horse to school. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well thanks a lot, Don, Hats off to you
Speaker 1: ten gallon hat even literally thank you for the invite.
Speaker 1: We may see you one of these Easter weekends and
Speaker 1: your trail ride. And if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can send us an email too
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.