Prickly New Baby Porcupine Is Brookfield Zoo's Newest Resident

BROOKFIELD, IL — The Brookfield Zoo’s newest resident can prove to be a bit prickly, but the baby porcupine is adjusting well to its new surroundings, zoo officials said on Tuesday.

The porcupette (baby porcupine) was born on March 19 and is currently being cared for by the zoo’s animal care staff after it was observed the porcupette’s mom, 9-year-old Lucia, was not providing her offspring proper maternal care, the zoo said in a news release.

But the unsexed newborn is thriving and being cared for around the clock and is being fed formula, that was developed by the Chicago Zoological Society’s director of nutrition. As the baby porcupine develops, the times between each feeding will increase until it is weaned at around 10 weeks old.

Once weaned, zoo staff will start to introduce the young porcupine to a diet consisting of a variety of vegetables, including sweet potato, green beans, corn, carrots, spinach, and kale, as well as a nutrient-based biscuit, peanuts, and sunflower seeds.

A porcupette weighs just less than a pound and is born with soft and bendable quills that protect the mother during the birthing process, zoo officials said. After a few days, however, the quills begin to harden with keratin—the same substance found in hair and fingernails—giving them their sharpness.

Similar to a deer fawn, a porcupette hides, and waits for its mother to come to it for nursing.

These types of porcupines are found mainly throughout much of South America, including in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, French Guiana, Trinidad, and northern Argentina, and live in high-elevation rain forests, the zoo said in the news release. Thought to be similar to North American porcupines, prehensile-tailed porcupines tend to have individual territories—females have exclusive ones, but males often have territories that overlap and may vary widely in size.

Their long tail is used to wrap around branches while climbing. Regardless of what some might think, porcupines do not shoot their quills, which are just modified hairs. Porcupines have muscles at the base of each quill that allows the quills to stand up when the animal is excited or alarmed. Like all hairs, quills do shed, and when a porcupine shakes, loose quills come out.

Both Lucia and the porcupette’s dad, 8-year-old Eddie, are members of Brookfield Zoo’s Animal Ambassador Program and can be seen in Hamill Family Play Zoo, officials said. Once the young porcupine is weaned from the bottle, he will also be a part of this program, which offers guests the opportunity to have up-close experiences with many of the animals.