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The 'Old World porcupines' are large representatives of the terrestrial rodent mammals, distinguished by their spiny covering from which they take their name. They range over the south of Europe, the whole of Africa, India and the Malay Archipelago as far east as Borneo. Although both the Old World and New World porcupine families belong to the Hystricognathi branch of the vast order Rodentia, they are quite different and are not closely related.
The 'European Porcupine' (''Hystrix cristata'') is the typical representative of a family of Old World rodents, the Hystricidae, all the members of which have the same protective covering. These rodents are characterized by the imperfectly rooted cheek-teeth, imperfect clavicles or collar-bones, cleft upper lip, rudimentary first front-toes, smooth soles, six teats and many cranial characters.
They are all stout, heavily-built animals, with blunt rounded heads, fleshy mobile snouts, and coats of thick cylindrical or flattened spines, which form the whole covering of their body, and are not intermingled with ordinary hairs. Their habits are strictly terrestrial.
Of the three genera, ''Hystrix'' is characterized by the inflated skull, in which the nasal chamber is often considerably larger than the brain-case, and the short tail, tipped with numerous slender-stalked open quills, which make a loud rattling noise whenever the animal moves.
The 'European Porcupine' (''H. cristata''), which occurs throughout the south of Europe and North and West Africa, is replaced in South Africa by 'African Crested Porcupine', ''H. africaeaustralis'' and in India by the 'Malayan Porcupine' (''H. leucura'').
Besides these large crested species, there are several smaller species without crests in north-east India, and the Malay region from Nepal to Borneo.

The genus ''Atherurus'' includes the brush-tailed porcupines which are much smaller animals, with long tails tipped with bundles of flattened spines. Two species are found in the Malay region and one in Central and West Africa. The latter species, ''Atherurus africanus'', is often hunted for its meat.
''Trichys'', the last genus, contains one species, ''Trichys fasciculata'' of Borneo. This species is externally very similar to ''Atherurus'', but differing from the members of that genus in many cranial characteristics.

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See also

★ Porcupine

★ New World porcupines