Jimmy Christiansen, age 12, of Cedar City, Utah, for his question:
How many porcupines are born at one time?
The porcupine of the New World is always an only child. For Mamma has but one baby at a time and when she has the next one, Junior is all grown up and gone off on his own. We tend to think that an only child is spoiled. But, says Andy, this is not necessarily so and ii, certainly is not so for the young porcupine. If a baby animal is born in the wild, his early life is spent in schooling, for he must know how t o take care of himself. If he is a mammal, this schooling comes with large doses of tender mother love end Junior Prickles is a mammal.
Mr. and Mrs. Porcupine mate in the f all and baby is born seven months later. The parents are vegetarians, and they do not hibernate during the udnter when plant life becomes scarce. A11 summer long, they feed on green foliage, especially alfalfa and sweet clover. When winter comes, they simply change their diet. They peel off and eat the bark, usually from lofty limbs and branches. Porcupines find this no trouble at all, for they have long, strong front teeth. They belang to the rodents, or gnawing animals, which ruakes them cousins to the rats, mice, beavers and squirrels.
Junior is born in a cozy den, either in a hollow tree or in a hole in the ground. At birth he weighs one pound, which means that he is bigger than a new born black bear cub. Mamma is about three feet long and baby is one foot long at birth. this whopping infant is wide awake and as alert as he ever will be right from the start. He has his eyes wide open and, though he has stiff spines, they are not yet hard enough to be called prickles. In about ten days, these quills are tough enough to be dangerous.
For a very short time Junior is fed on mothers milk. His education begins almost at once. He goes on hunting trips with Mamma and she teaches him where to find the proper foliage and how to eat it. If there is a human camp around, Mamma will show him how to find salt for porcupines love salt and will go to a lot of trouble to get it. They will lick tent poles, axe handles and any object a human being has touched with salty sweat on his hands.
As Junior grows, he will see how Mamma copes with her enemies: Her 30,000 quills range from one to seven inches long. They are loosely set in fur and come out easily. When threatened, Mamma arches her back with quills bristling. If the silly enemy does not retreat, she swings around and deals him a deadly blow full in the face. Some of the quills will stick and dig themselves deep into the enemy's flesh: All these things Junior will learn by fall, when he is ready t o go off into the world on his own.