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Porcupine offspring in Great Britain
Photo: ZSL London Zoo
A new addition to the family of porcupines at London Zoo: two young animals – a male and a female – were born in the zoo in the British capital.
According to the zoo, they were born on January 14 and spent their first week snuggling up in a den with their mother.
Animal keeper Veronica Heldt discovered the newborns on the so-called »porcupine cam«.
The babies were doing "really well," she said.
Although they are only two weeks old, they are already exploring their surroundings with confidence and have settled in well with their new family.
Soft spikes, hard spikes
The animals were given the names Hector and Hinata by the zoo.
"All the porcupines in the family have names that begin with the letter 'H'," Heldt said.
The father of the animal babies is called Henning, the mother Hettie.
Incidentally, one feature clearly distinguishes the newborn animals from adult porcupines, according to Heldt: "Luckily for mother Hettie, the porcupine babies are born with short, soft quills, which harden at the age of about a week, so that the birth was not so painful, as you might imagine!”
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