Hystrix cristata Linnaeus 1758
Creators: name: Don E. Wilson
name: Thomas E. Lacher, Jr
name: Russell A. Mittermeier
Publisher: name: Lynx Edicions
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Rodentia
Hystricidae
Hystrix
Hystrix cristata

description: 9.
Crested Porcupine
Hystrix cristata
French: Porc-épic a créte / German: Gewohnliches Stachelschwein / Spanish: Puercoespin crestado
Other common names: North African Crested Porcupine
Taxonomy. Hystrix cristata Linnaeus, 1758,
“Habitat in Asia.” Restricted by O. Thomas in 1911 to “near Rome,Italy.”
Hystrix cristata is in subgenus Hystrix. Two species, H. cristata and H. galeata, had been described from Africa north of the Equator, but wide overlap in all characteristics led G. B. Corbet and L. A. Jones in 1965 to regard them as a single species. Several subspecies had been described in Italy and North Africa, although D. C. D. Happold recognized none in 2013. Monotypic.
Distribution. S Europe (mainland Italy and Sicily Is), N Africa (along the coast and in parts of the Atlas Mts in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, parts of Libyan and Egyptian coasts, and isolated populations in the semiarid parts of Mauritania, Mali, and Niger), E Africa (S Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, S Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia), and across a narrow band extending from Senegal to Tanzania (and including Zanzibar I). Introduced in the 19" century into Elba I (but now possibly extinct there) and from 2005 into Sardinia from mainland Italy.
Descriptive notes. Head-body 455-930 mm, tail 60-170 mm, ear 39 mm (one individual), hindfoot 86 mm (one individual); weight 8-27 kg. The Crested Porcupine is the second largest rodent in Europe (second to the Eurasian Beaver, Castorfiber) and, along with the similarly sized Cape Porcupine (H. africaeaustralis), is the largest rodent in Africa. It is thickset, with coarse blackish brown fur and well-bristled body, relatively short legs, and short, well-hidden tail. Male-biased and reverse sexualsize dimorphism has been reported, but two recent studies found no difference in body size between adult males and females. Quill type and distribution are similar to the Cape Porcupine. Head, neck, feet, and belly of the Crested Porcupine are covered with short, sturdy, flattened spines and bristles (20-45 mm long, 2 mm wide). Back and sides are covered with 300-400 mm long,stiff true quills, banded in black and white. Well-developed integumentary smooth muscles and subcutaneous muscles reflect quill arrangement on back; these muscles contract to raise quills. Microscopic spiny bristles are present on quill surfaces and oriented in opposite direction from quills, resulting in a “harpoonlike” effect. Legs and ventrum are covered with short, coarse black hairs. Short legs are stout, and feet have large pads and well-developed claws. Erectile, well-developed crest of coarse brownish white hair up to 500 mm in length spreads from top of head to shoulders and characterizes morphology of the subgenus Hystrix. White chin patch is often present. Yellow-gray head of the Crested Porcupine is large and blunt, with small dark eyes and darkly pigmented ears, and has long, dark mystacial vibrissae. Long, wide nasal bones are more than 57% of occipito-nasal length and extend posteriorly almost to anterior end of orbits. Frontal:nasal ratios are 23-38%. Upper incisors are smooth, and folds of enamel and dentine characterize cheekteeth. Rump is covered with short, flat, dark bristles on dorsal and ventral sides. Short tail is covered with short quills, mostly invisible beneath defensive quills on lower back, and has rattle-quills that rattle when tail is shaken. There are 4-6 mammae. Perianal glands are well developed. In the field, it is difficult to distinguish the Crested Porcupine from the Cape Porcupine; short quills on lower rump of the Crested Porcupine are black, whereas they are white on the Cape Porcupine. Skull differences are clear and were well described by van Weers. Compared with the Indian Crested Porcupine (H. indica), short spines on rump of the Crested Porcupine form conspicuous white patches when raised, and crest is predominantly white. Premaxillae of medium width, and frontal-to-nasal ratio 23-38%.
Habitat. Woodlands, warm and cold savanna grasslands, dry semi-deserts, and warm Mediterranean coastal shrublands. In Algeria and Morocco, the Crested Porcupine lives in forested hills and steppes. In the Atlas Mountains and on Kilimanjaro,it lives at elevations of up to 3500 m. It prefers rocky areas.
Food and Feeding. The Crested Porcupine is a generalist herbivore. It eats subterranean bulbs, roots,fruits, and bark. It can be a pest to farmers, damaging cassava, sweet potato, and groundnut crops in savanna farmlands. In Italy, the Crested Porcupine changesits diet seasonally, consuming roots as the predominant food year-round, supplemented by herbs in winter and spring, grass inflorescences and fruits in summer, and fruits in autumn.
Breeding. The Crested Porcupine, like the Cape Porcupine and the Indian Crested Porcupine, is monogamous. Breeding takes place throughout the year, with a female giving birth to 1-2 precocial offspring once or twice per year. In captivity, there is a nightly rhythm of mounting. Multiple mountings per night are typical, but copulation takes place only during estrus (a difference from the Indian Crested Porcupine and the Cape Porcupine in which mounting and copulation take place independent of stage of estrus). The female Crested Porcupine presses her quills against her back to allow mating. Gestation lasts 7-8 weeks,after which litters of 1-4 young are born in a grass-lined burrow. Longevity is up to 20 years.
Activity patterns. The Crested Porcupine is nocturnal. Individuals spend their days at rest in burrows. In Italy, a Crested Porcupine might share its burrow with a European Badger (Meles meles). The Crested Porcupine is active across a wide range of temperatures, with mean duration of nocturnal and crepuscular activity in central Italy lasting on average 9-2 hours/night, varying little throughout the year. In cold months when nights were longer, individuals left burrows after sunset and returned some hours before sunrise. In the warm season, they left at sunset or shortly before and returned at or shortly after sunrise. Moonlight avoidance is slight. Diurnal activity is scarce. When alarmed, a Crested Porcupine first raises its quills and erects its crest; second,it rattles its tail; and third, it stomps its hindfeet and growls. If these displays fail to deter a threat, it may attack by moving rapidly backward and sideways toward it, stabbing it with its long defensive quills that detach easily from the skin.
Movements, Home range and Social organization. Crested Porcupines live in family groups. In captivity, males mark feeding sites with secretions from perianal glands. Chemical profiles from secretions of perianal glands may aid in individual recognition. Published studies of space use, home range, and social behavior report only on Italian populations. Home range size does not differ between males and females, although in one study in Tuscany, upper-limit of home range size was significantly higher for females than males. Home range size varies with habitat and season. Crested Porcupines in agricultural areas have larger home ranges than those in natural maquis shrubland (densely growing evergreen shrubs), and home range size decreases with increasing habitat richness. Home ranges were significantly larger in the warm season than the cold season in both habitats. Average minimum convex polygon home range size in agricultural areas was 151 ha in summer and 128 ha in winter vs. 50 ha in summer and 34 ha in winter in natural areas. For each male-female pair, median home range overlap is ¢.75%, with no change between seasons. Pair members show a strong and consistent spatial overlap throughout the year. Crested Porcupines prefer covered habitats by day. At night, those foraging in agricultural habitat spent 42-5% of time in ecotone areas, 28-5% in fields or fallows, and 28% in woods; those foraging in natural habitats stayed in cover 69% ofthe time, using the ecotone only 19% and open habitat 12% of the time. In terms of distance moved per night, Crested Porcupines moved greater distances in pine woods habitat (460-746 m) than grazed areas (210-225 m). Those living in pinewoods did not move to agricultural fields to forage, but those living in grazed areas did. Crested Porcupines will visit feeding areas as far as 10-12 km from their dens. Very little is known about densities and population dynamics of Crested Porcupines. In Italy, the Crested Porcupine has been found in feces of Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and, rarely, Gray Wolves (Canis lupus).
Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List. The Crested Porcupine is a nationally protected species in Italy, although its eradication from Sardinia, where it has been recently introduced, has been recommended. Some recommend listing the Crested Porcupine as an endangered species in Europe, due to destruction of maquis,its optimal habitat, and because of poaching (especially in recently colonized areas). Payments of up to €19,500/year are claimed for crop damage by farmers in southern Tuscany. Distributional expansion in Italy would suggest that the Crested Porcupine is in fact doing well. Lack of data on abundance and densities regionally and nationally in Italy makes management a challenge. In Africa, the Crested Porcupine is one of the most important species for subsistence and income in the Albertine Rift where it is used for human food and wearing apparel. Almost nothing is written about ecology or behavior of the Crested Porcupine from anywhere in Africa. Although there remains some debate about how the Crested Porcupine came to be in Italy, its presence there is likely the result of an introduction from North Africa. Although there are fossil remains from the genus Hystrix in Europe beyond Italy, recent molecular analysis of three genes from Italian and African specimens shows a pattern of diversity congruent with an introduction from northern Africa during the Roman Age; one of three clades revealed in the analysis grouped Italian specimens together with specimens from Tunisia. A large number of DNA haplotypes present in Italian specimens may indicate several introductions over historical time. Since the 1970s, distribution of the Crested Porcupine in Italy has been expanding northward and eastward, crossing the Apennines from the Tyrrhenian coast to Marche. Historical and social factors, including progressive urbanization and consequent abandonment of traditional land use in mountainous areas, probably have contributed to distributional expansion. Despite suggestions otherwise, the Crested Porcupine has never occurred on the Ionian and Aegean islands, the Balkans, or the Iberian Peninsula in the Holocene, even in the very recent past.
Bibliography. Amori & Angelici (1992), Angelici, Cabras & Trucchi (2009), Angelici, Capizzi et al. (2003), Bruno & Riccardi (1995), Carr et al. (2013), Corbet (1978), Corbet & Jones (1965), Corsini et al. (1995), Felicioli et al. (1997), Fischer et al. (2002), Foley et al. (2014), Giotto (2011), Grubb et al. (2008), Happold (2013a), Hoath (2009), Lovari et al. (2013), Masseti (2012), Massolo et al. (2009), Mohr (1965), Mori & Lovari (2014), Mori et al. (2013), Nowak (1999a), Pigozzi (1987, 1992), Pigozzi & Patterson (1990), Sonnino (1998), Storch (1990), Thomas (1911c¢), Trucchi & Sbordoni (2009), van Weers (1979).
description: Published as part of Don E. Wilson, Thomas E. Lacher, Jr & Russell A. Mittermeier, 2016, Hystricidae, pp. 304-312 in Handbook of the Mammals of the World – Volume 6 Lagomorphs and Rodents I, Barcelona :Lynx Edicions on pages 309-310, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6612213