Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Hystricidae > Hystrix > Hystrix africaeaustralis

Hystrix africaeaustralis (Cape porcupine)

Wikipedia Abstract

The Cape porcupine or South African porcupine, (Hystrix africaeaustralis), is a species of Old World porcupine native to central and southern Africa.
View Wikipedia Record: Hystrix africaeaustralis

Infraspecies

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
22
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 8.2
EDGE Score: 2.22

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  52.911 lbs (24.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  351 grams
Diet [2]  Frugivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  20 %
Diet - Plants [2]  80 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year
Male Maturity [1]  1 year
Gestation [1]  3 months 4 days
Litter Size [1]  2
Litters / Year [1]  2
Maximum Longevity [1]  23 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  37 inches (93 cm)
Weaning [1]  77 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Cape Floristic Region South Africa No
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Prey / Diet

Burkea africana (Wild syringa)[5]
Cordyla africana (cordyla)[5]
Dombeya spectabilis spectabilis[5]
Melia azedarach (chinaberry)[5]
Pinus roxburghii (Long-leaved Indian pine)[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Agapornis lilianae (Lilian's Lovebird)1
Amblyospiza albifrons (Thick-billed Weaver)1
Poicephalus robustus (Cape Parrot)1

Predators

Panthera leo (Lion)[5]
Panthera pardus (Leopard)[5]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ctenocephalides canis (Dog flea)[6]
Ctenocephalides felis strongylus[6]
Pariodontis riggenbachi riggenbachi[6]
Xenopsylla cheopis (oriental rat flea)[6]

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
4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
5Hystrix africaeaustralis, Erika L. Barthelmess, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 788, pp. 1-7 (2006)
6International 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