Brush-tailed porcupine

Stuffed African Quastenstachler ( Atherurus africanus)

Quastenstachler ( Atherurus ) is a genus of porcupine with two species that occur in Africa and Asia.

Features

Quastenstachler are elongated with short legs. As with other porcupines of the upper body and sometimes the lower body is covered with spines. The spines are soft on head, legs and belly. They also cover the front tail, whereas the middle tail- range scales bears. At the tail end is a tassel of bristly hair, which gave its name to the genus. The spines of the back are gray - brown to black, and the intermediate hairs have white tips. At the belly grow completely white hair. Adult males reach a snout-vent length from 35.5 to 57 cm, a tail length of 10 to 26 cm and a weight of 1.5 to 4.0 kg.

Fitted with claw fingers and toes are partially crosslinked with skin.

Types and distribution

There are two types:

• The African Quastenstachler ( Atherurus africanus) comes from Gambia to Kenya and to the southern Democratic Republic of Congo before.
• The distribution area of the Asian Quast Stach moth ( Atherurus macrourus ) ranges from southern China (Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan ) to the mainland areas of Indochina. The species lives on smaller islands, such as Hainan.

These rodents will stay in different types of forests in the lowlands and up to 3,000 meters high mountains.

Way of life

Quastenstachler are exclusively nocturnal. On the day they rest in hiding, for example, between roots and rock crevices or in their burrows, which are applied in natural cavities steep river bank or in termite mounds. The porcupines rarely dig themselves, however, bolster the nest with plant parts. They usually stay on the ground, despite well-developed climbing and swimming assets. In addition, the animals can jump a meter high.

These rodents feed mainly on green parts of plants, roots, bark and fruits. Insects and carrion serve as complementary foods.

At least the African species forms small family groups of up to eight members, which consist of a breeding pair and their pups from different litters. The group shares the building and the area whose boundaries are marked with droppings. The Asian Quastenstachler probably shows a similar social behavior.

Females can have three litters a year, a special mating season is not known. After 100 to 110 days of gestation, the female gives birth to usually one young, rarely are born to four cubs. These are well developed and open after a few hours, the eyes. The juveniles take the earliest from the second week of solid food, but the mother suckles until the second month of life of boys. Specimens in captivity were almost 23 years old.

The IUCN lists both species as not threatened (Least Concern ).