Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Erethizontidae > Erethizon > Erethizon dorsatus

Erethizon dorsatus (common porcupine; porcupine)

Synonyms: Coendou cumberlandicus; Erethizon cloacinus; Erethizon dorsatum; Erethizon godfreyi; Hystrix dorsata
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum), also known as the Canadian porcupine or common porcupine, is a large rodent in the New World porcupine family. The beaver is the only rodent in North America that is larger than the North American porcupine. The porcupine is a caviomorph rodent whose ancestors rafted across the Atlantic from Africa to Brazil over 30 million years ago, and then migrated to North America during the Great American Interchange after the Isthmus of Panama rose 3 million years ago.
View Wikipedia Record: Erethizon dorsatus

Infraspecies

Erethizon dorsata bruneri
Erethizon dorsata couesi
Erethizon dorsata dorsata
Erethizon dorsata epixanthus
Erethizon dorsata myops
Erethizon dorsata nigrescens
Erethizon dorsata picinum
Erethizon dorsatus bruneri
Erethizon dorsatus couesi
Erethizon dorsatus dorsatus
Erethizon dorsatus epixanthus
Erethizon dorsatus myops
Erethizon dorsatus nigrescens
Erethizon dorsatus picinus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
25
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 9.78
EDGE Score: 2.38
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  18.96 lbs (8.60 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  1.102 lbs (500 g)
Diet [2]  Frugivore, Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  10 %
Diet - Plants [2]  70 %
Diet - Seeds [2]  20 %
Forages - Scansorial [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  3 years
Male Maturity [1]  3 years
Gestation [1]  7 months
Litter Size [1]  1
Litters / Year [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  23 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Weaning [1]  60 days
Habitat Substrate [3]  Arboreal

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (131)

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Making The Forest And Tundra Wildlife Connection
♦ 5Exploring the Denali Food Web, ParkWise, National Park Service
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7Erethizon dorsatum, Charles A. Woods, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 29, pp. 1-6 (1973)
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 9International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0