Porcupine

The animal that I am researching is the porcupine.  The porcupine has over 30,000 quills on its body that act as the porcupine’s defense mechanism and physical adaptation.

The quills are sharp bristles of fused hair. These help the porcupine to survive because when another animal attacks, the porcupine will hit the enemy with its quills, allowing them to settle into the attackers skin.  This hurts and could cause deadly wounds.  Porcupines also defend themselves by hitting the opponent with their spiked tale. The porcupine will only attack if it feels it is being threatened.

Here are two pictures of porcupines, showing its quills, which help them, defend themselves:

Here is another website that I read about porcupines on:

http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/porcupine-info.htm