In the summer their fur is shinier and much lighter than in the winter. Size and Weight A porcupine can grow to be 40 inches long and 40 pounds. Baby porcupines are called porcupettes. Porcupines weigh the most of all the short legged rodents that are normally nocturnal, solitary, and herbivorous. Feeding Habits Porcupines eat bark, buds, twigs, and leaves.
Porcupines like to eat the tender layers of the tree under the bark.
Every now and then they will take so much bark off that they kill the tree. New world porcupines live in the trees for a while and old world porcupines stick to the ground. The most common of the new world porcupines is the forest living North American porcupine. The new world porcupines are a part of the erethizontidae family and the old world porcupines are hysricidae. If a porcupine is threatened it will grunt, stamp, erect and rattle its quills as a warning.