Crested Porcupine: Because of Them, Lions Become Man-Eaters (11 photos)

The Crested Porcupine is a top-level criminal manipulator. At first glance, he's a great guy: he loves his family, is faithful to his wife, lives modestly, has no history of destructive activity, and generally only comes out of his hole at night. You'd never guess that his actions have indirectly led to the deaths of hundreds of people.





Here he is, a true genius of the criminal world.

In appearance, as befits a mafia member, the porcupine is unremarkable. Large teeth, stocky build, thick dark fur that is almost invisible behind hundreds of long needles. A rodent is a rodent, even in Africa. Even the huge number of long spines does not bother it. A large, up to 27 kilograms in weight, and slow rodent needs to somehow protect itself from predators.



Underground bars? Tax fraud? Mr. Prosecutor, you have me confused with someone else!

But the porcupine's needles are where its strength lies. The animal's spines are not simple, they are covered with many small thorns that "anchor" them in wounds, preventing the animal from getting rid of dozens of splinters in its body. In addition, the needles are hollow and break off easily, it is difficult even for people to extract them. There is no point in animals even trying.





When I came to acupuncture to a Chinese doctor...

That is why the prickly boss swaggers around the savannah and never gives way to anyone, on the contrary, everyone runs away from him. Even large animals get up and move away if they accidentally lie down in its path. Everyone knows: crossing a porcupine's path means getting a couple dozen sharp needles.



Not tasty and sad...

Predators attack the spines only in the most extreme cases, when they are exhausted, weak and cannot find any other prey. And this is a fatal mistake. Statistics say that every fourth meeting between a lion and a porcupine ends in death: the needles pierce the vital arteries of the cats, leaving them no chance. An even more unpleasant thing can happen if the predator is left disabled after meeting the porcupine. This is how man-eating lions are made.



Girls, let's get out of here, this prey is too tough for us.

Wounded or weakened predators cannot attack their main prey - large wild ungulates. In order not to die of hunger, they switch to smaller, more vulnerable and bony animals. For example, people. Have you heard about the man-eating lions from Tsavo, who killed more than 130 people? Yes, they became like that because of a mafia boss! Scans of the lions' skulls showed that both animals had fragments of porcupine quills stuck in their muzzles.



This lioness is very lucky if the needles did not go deep.



But the thick skin of the Honey Badger, the true king of the savannah, very effectively restrains the penetrating power of the needles.

At the same time, the porcupines themselves wash their paws - they seem to have nothing to do with it. Rodents, as expected, gnaw on all sorts of roots, tubers and rhizomes. Sometimes, however, they do eat insects and carrion, but only when no one is looking: the animals drag the bones to their holes and gnaw them quietly there. By the way, their holes are also cunning. From the outside, they look unremarkable: just a hole in the ground in which someone lives. But in fact, there are real mansions there: over 10 meters long and more than 4 meters deep, with all sorts of passages and branches for sleeping and giving birth to offspring.



The city falls asleep, the mafia wakes up.

Porcupines often make babies 1-3 times a year. The further south, the more often. Pregnancy lasts almost 4 months, but the female can afford it, because the father porcupine spends all his time with her and helps take care of the offspring. The young are also in no hurry to move away from their parents, they leave their father's house only in the 2nd year of life. Even porcupines walk in whole families, an adult couple is almost always accompanied by several broods of cubs.



A harmless family during a daytime promenade. Just don't get too close to them.

Such processions of cacti are a real disaster not only for animals, but also for humans. When the opportunity arises, the prickly rodents do not miss the chance to feast on vegetables and fruits on plantations. And it would be fine if they simply stole, but the animals act like real bandits: they dig the ground, destroy the fence, bite through water hoses, break plants and create other chaos. The already poor locals suffer serious losses. And the porcupines again seem to have nothing to do with it, they were just passing by.



For a real mafia boss, family is the most important thing, and the rest are just a resource.

Unfortunately for the rodents, people quickly realized who was to blame for raiding their crops. And even faster - that porcupines have very tasty meat. Previously, animals were hunted in large quantities - as it turned out, horny spines are not worth even against primitive human weapons. Now hunting animals for food is almost forgotten: mafiosi destroy them in response to their ruthless vegetarian raids or during sport fishing. But they are still not in danger of extinction.



Tell the lions that there is work for them here.