Читать книгу Nature’s Babies - Mike Dilger - Страница 10

So-called for its fondness for hedgerows and because of a snout that resembles a pig, the hedgehog is very aptly named indeed. Setting aside its preferred habitat and nose, the hedgehog’s other most distinguishing feature is, of course, its prickly nature.

During the day hedgehogs will seek shelter in a nest of grass and leaves under bushes or logs until they take their cue from dusk to begin roaming through parks, neighbouring gardens and woods in their perennial search for earthworms, slugs and snails. To prevent themselves actually figuring on the menus of other larger predators such as badgers and foxes, they are famously capable of rolling into a thorny, impenetrable ball to protect their vulnerable undersides.

For obvious reasons, a male wishing to mate with a female has to do so very carefully, and not until she is absolutely ready! As hedgehogs hibernate during the winter, their noisy mating takes place during the summer months and just over a month later four to five youngsters are born. Fortunately for the mother, the baby hedgehogs are ‘spine-less’ at first, but only a few hours after birth the baby’s first set of nearly 150 spines will already have pushed up through the skin. By the twelfth day the youngsters have managed the art of curling up when necessary, and after a further month and a couple of sets of new spines later, the young hedgehogs become perfect miniature replicas of their prickly parents.

© Wim Weenink/Foto Natura/FLPA

A hedgehog’s prickles, or spines, are actually hollow stiff hairs that can be raised at will if danger threatens.