Saturday, June 20, 2015

Prickly Situation

I want to explain before I get started today that I am not obsessed with porcupine sex. What happened was I read that porcupine quills contain a natural antibiotic so if they are on the receiving end of a quill they won't get infected. That in turn made me wonder how that would happen and the only thing I could think of was when they were mating. The next thing I know I am looking up how porcupines mate and the act is an unique as the animals themselves. The females are only receptive once a year,the process begins with some nose rubbing,if the female accepts this first step the male then rises on his back legs and urinates on her with extremely high pressure (not the normal urine stream). If the pheromones impress the female she raises her tail exposing the quill-less underside and they copulate. Another interesting porcupine fact is the female is one of the few animals that cannot be raped. If she rejects a males advances and he persists she simply swipes her tail at his exposed male part,end of story!


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