South+African+hedgehog

The South African hedgehog is a small, prickly looking creature. They are only 20cm long and have a weight of around 400g. This tiny animal is covered with sharp spines, similar but not exactly to that of porcupine’s spines. These spines are most of the time 2-3 cm long, and start from the top of the hedgehogs head and end at the animal’s rump. They are white at the roots, and at the tips of the spines. However, in between the roots and the tip is a dark brown section of the spine, which gives the hedgehog its color on its back, or the color that we see when we look at them. The rest of this animal is covered by light brown or tan looking hairs that are very tiny.

The South African hedgehog usually tends to live in a wide range of different habitats, but nothing as cold and rainy as a rainforest or as extremely hot and dry as the desert. These hedgehogs are born within a 35 day gestation period and are not born with their spines above the skin. And it’s pretty obvious why if they are that sharp and coarse, but they do emerge within six hours or so of them being born. The average number of these hedgehogs is four to a litter, but there could be as many as nine. Within six weeks of birth, they have their full set of adult spines and are full grown.

The South African hedgehog’s diet consists mostly of insects like millipedes and earthworms. They don’t really have to hunt for their foods; they just have to maybe at the most dig a little in the ground. Most of the time, they eat the insects that they find just crawling past them and eat those. Their predators are mostly humans. Humans hunt them for food and for medical purposes. Many are also killed on roads and by some diseases is the wild. But mainly, humans are the ones at fault for their decrease in populations.