hedgehog

A juvenile European hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus. This hedgehog will probably have been one of a litter of five, and will have been weaned at five weeks old.

Insectivorous mammal native to Europe, Asia, and Africa. The body, including the tail, is 30 cm/1 ft long. It is greyish brown in colour, has a piglike snout, and its back and sides are covered with sharp spines. When threatened it rolls itself into a ball bristling with spines. Hedgehogs feed on insects, slugs, mice, frogs, young birds, and carrion. Long-eared hedgehogs and desert hedgehogs are placed in different genera. (Genus Erinaceus, family Erinaceidae, order Insectivora.)

Hedgehogs normally shelter by day and go out at night. They find food more by smell and sound than by sight. The young are born in the late spring or early summer, and are blind, helpless, and covered with soft spines. For about a month they feed on their mother's milk, after which she teaches them to find their own food. In the autumn, hedgehogs make a nest of leaves and moss in the roots of a tree or in a hole in the ground and hibernate until spring.

The spines, which reach a maximum length of 2.5 cm/1 in, are sharply pointed and grooved along the sides, and controlled by the muscles of the back. When a hedgehog rolls itself into a ball, it can fall safely from a considerable height.