Hystrix indica, Kerr, 1792
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publication ID |
https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.6612213 |
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DOI |
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6612309 |
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persistent identifier |
https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03A91B1C-C156-4A68-C9D5-F9B49FB86B0B |
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treatment provided by |
Carolina |
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Hystrix indica |
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11. View Plate 18: Hystricidae
Indian Crested Porcupine
French: Porc-épic indien / German: Indisches Stachelschwein / Spanish: Puercoespin de India
Other common names: White-tailed Porcupine
Taxonomy. Hystrix cristata indica Kerr, 1792 View in CoL ,
India.
Hystrix indica is in subgenus Hystrix . Monotypic.
Distribution. W & S Asia, from the E Mediterranean (S Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel) and Arabian Peninsula, NE to Transcaucasia, extreme S Russia (gagestan), Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and S Kazakhstan, and S throughout Afghanistan to Iran, Pakistan, S Nepal, most of the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka. View Figure
Descriptive notes. Head-body 455-930 mm, tail 60-170 mm, ear 40-47 mm, hindfoot 95-104 mm; weight 8-27 kg. The Indian Crested Porcupine is large and brown, with stocky build, short legs, and short, well-hidden tail. Body is covered in a variety of quills, similar in type to those of the Crested Porcupine ( H. cristata ) and the Cape Porcupine ( H. africaeaustralis ). There is no sexual dimorphism. Thereis an erectile crest of coarse brown bristles exceeding 300 mm in length, occurring posteriorly from top of head to top of shoulders. Shoulders, flanks, and ventrum are covered with coarse blackish brown bristles. Back is covered with 300-400 mm long brown and white defensive quills; each has two or more alternating bands of brown and white along its length. Maximum diameter of thickest quills on back is 5-7 mm, and white tips of long back quills extend ¢.260 mm. Hands and feet are broad and are well adapted for digging; pollex is vestigial, and hallux is clawed and well developed. Feet are covered in bristles. Tail of the Indian Crested Porcupine is short, with tail to head-body length ofless than 20% and mostly invisible beneath defensive quills of lower back. Tail ends in a group of short (less than 60 mm), wide, white rattle-quills bearing hollow capsule sections, 35-60 mm in length, that together produce a rattle sound when tail is shaken. Frontal region of skull is expanded, and nasal region is inflated. Nasal bones are short, less than 57% of occipito-nasal length. Frontal:nasal bone ratios are 45-70%. Premaxillae are wide (more than 44% width of nasals). Infraorbital foramen is large. Cheekteeth are strongly hypsodont. There are three pairs of mammae. In southern India, some Indian Crested Porcupines have quills on back with rusty red tinge. The Indian Crested Porcupine can be distinguished from the Crested Porcupine by predominantly brown crest (white in Crested Porcupines) and white midline on rump (black or mottled in Crested Porcupines).
Habitat Wide variety of natural, agricultural, and urbanized habitats. Distribution of the Indian Crested Porcupine is centered in steppe biomes and also includes desert margins and relatively mesic zones. In the central and northern Negev Desert of Israel, it occupies a variety of habitats including limestone hills, flat plateaus, seasonally dry wadis (riverbeds) and flood plains, and steep, narrow canyons. In India, it prefers rocky hillsides, open countryside, and deciduous and monsoon forests. Camera-trap data from Nepal showed a preponderance of photos from grasslandsvs. forests, which might result from distribution of food resources or presence of large predators (e.g. Leopards, Panthera pardus).
Food and Feeding. The Indian Crested Porcupine is generalist herbivore. It is particularly adept at exploiting patchy vegetation of semiarid and arid habitats. In the Negev Desert,it eats at least 18 species of geophytes (tubers, bulbs, corms, rhizomes and other subterranean structures) and hemicryptophytes. Its use of geophytes increases water balance and reduce exposure to plants with low nutrient content, low digestibility, or high concentrations of secondary metabolites. Fasted captive Indian Crested Porcupines consumed 528-7 g potatoes within 45 minutes and averaged 147-9 g/hour thereafter. Averaged total intake was 1239-4 g fresh mass for 5-8 h of feeding. Nightly intakes were 198-3 g dry matter, 1092 ml preformed water, and 3056 kJ of energy. Maintenance energy requirement of captive porcupines was 220 kJ/kg/day. In the Negev Desert, daily water intake was significantly higher in summer than winter, although there were no differences in seasonal ad libitum food intake by captive individuals. The Indian Crested Porcupine also eats grains and fruits. Digging as a form of ecological disturbance has an important positive role in increasing plant biomass, density, and species richness across patchy landscapes of the Negev Desert. Density of porcupine digs in highlands of the Negev Desert varied from more than 1 dig/m? on a densely vegetated plateau to 0-1 dig/m? on a sparsely vegetated deep loess. Digs of Indian Crested Porcupines persist for 1-6-5 years, depending on size. Individuals appeared to exploit the same food patches over time. Investigatory sniffing is a major behavior probably associated with searching for food. Indian Crested Porcupines use a stereotypical posture when eating, in which body is prone, hindlegs are outstretched, and forelimbs rest on ground; food items are manipulated with inner front paws. The Indian Crested Porcupine can be a pest to agriculture by raiding crops and to forestry by debarking trees at ground level. In India, it is destructive to sweet potato, sugarcane, and maize crops and production forests. It gnaws bones, horns, and antlers. In Israel, consumption of roots and aboveground crops and bark of cultivated trees and damage to irrigation tubing causesit to be regarded as the most important agricultural pest among the country’s large mammals. Time required to forage might limit occurrence of Indian Crested Porcupines to areas where nights are not less than seven hours. Most northern populations are at ¢.44° N, where night duration at summersolstice is ¢.7-3 hours. To occur north of this boundary, Indian Crested Porcupines would have to forage during daylight or reduce food intake. Otherwise, northern distributional limits do not coincide with broad bioclimatic or vegetation boundaries.
Breeding. The Indian Crested Porcupine, like the Cape Porcupine and the Crested Porcupine, is monogamous. Observations of captive pairs found that females presented themselves to males, and males copulated with them (including intromission) every night throughout the year. The male, who parades in front of the female and then stands motionless for several minutes with his quills erect, might also initiate mating. Next, he approaches and retreats from the female several times, while making squawking sounds. Copulation takes place during pregnancy and lactation and is not restricted to estrus. In Pakistan, breeding has been recorded in March-April. Females give birth to litters of 1-4 young in “maternity chambers,” cushioned with grass or leaves. Neonates weigh ¢.3% of their mother’s weight at birth and require a long nursing period. Eyes open at or within a few hours of birth, and incisors have broken through completely. Back spikes are still soft, short, and ¢.30 mm long; tail rattle-quills are soft and silent. Sensory bristles are developed and extend beyond lengths of spikes. Newborns are very active and agile within hours of birth. From birth to about three months of age, young are cared for by their fathers that perform all of the same parental care behaviors as their mothers, except nursing and licking their anogenital areas. Running toward a newborn when it utters a distress call is predominantly a male response. During the first month after birth of young, the male spends ¢.30% ofhis active time alone with newborns and ¢.20% of his time with the female and newborns. During the second and third month after birth, there is a gradual decrease in percent active time spent alone with newborns by both males and females and a gradual increase in percent active time that both parents spend with young.
Activity patterns. Indian Crested Porcupines are strictly nocturnal. They spend daytime hours in dens (natural caves or excavated burrows). Timing of den emergence varies with season. In winter, they largely confine their behavior to darker nights or darker periods of the night and strongly avoid bright moonlight. In summer, they are active independent of moonlight given the shorter nights. Mean duration of nocturnal activity is 9-2 hours in summervs. 6-7 hours in winter. Indian Crested Porcupines remain closer to dens on bright nights than dark nights throughout the year. Rainfall curtails activity. Activity pattern may be influenced by predation risk; one study used the method of “giving up density” and found that porcupines have lowest foraging costs in habitats with densest cover and on dark nights. In a camera trapping study in western Nepal, porcupine activity was significantly more common during the central part of the night (23:00 h to 02:00 h) than in crepuscular or daylight periods. When sensing danger, Indian Crested Porcupines erect their quills and rattle their tails menacingly.
Movements, Home range and Social organization. Indian Crested Porcupines live alone or in family groups. They spend daylight hours in communal dens in family units or clans. In deserts east of the Caspian Sea, Indian Crested Porcupines dig complicated burrow systems in compacted dunes and clay embankments. Most tunnels are up to 2:5 m underground, and main tunnels are more than 10-16 m long, ending in a deep living chamber. Chambers may be used by clans for decades and provide protection and constant temperature and humidity. Intraspecific communication and territorial marking occur mainly by anal gland secretions and urine. Quills of the Indian Crested Porcupine contain channels that may allow quills to serve as osmotrichia. Individuals from the same den share broadly overlapping home ranges and foraging areas that are substantially different from porcupines occupying different dens, although in one study three individuals from the same den had little home range overlap. Solitary males have different movement behavior than male-female pairs. In one study, a solitary male was active in part of his home range and then wandered up to 8 km defining another part of his home range. Pairs remained in underground shelters during the day, while solitary males used surface shelters. Average distance traveled per night was shorter for solitary males (1684 m) than for pairs (2310 m). Temperature, humidity, and rainfall did not influence movement. Home ranges averaged 1-5 km®, and individuals typically moved 2-8 km/night. Home range size differs between individuals that use agricultural areas and those that do not. In the Negev Desert, Indian Crested Porcupines that foraged in natural desert had exclusive home ranges that were 37% larger (1-2-1-8 km?) than the overlapping, smaller (0-38-1-3 km*) home ranges of individuals dependent on agricultural habitat. Movements averaged 2767 m/night at arate of 7 m/minute, but they were longer for individuals near vs. far from agricultural habitat. Near agriculture, individuals moved 3174 m/night at a rate of 8 m/minute, whereas in natural areas, individuals moved an average of 2361 m/night at 5-9 m/ minute. Indian Crested Porcupines with dens close to agriculturalfields had narrower home ranges and showed bimodal space use, moving between the den and agricultural fields. In contrast, individuals with dens further from agriculture had broader home ranges that largely or entirely included natural habitats; they had single activity centers near their dens and used many different food patches. Densities of Indian Crested Porcupines in different habitats in Israel are: 4 ind/km? on coastal plains, 2-1 ind/km? in semiarid natural areas, and 7-5 ind/km? in agricultural areas. Densities might be regulated in part by predation. Leopards (Panthera pardus), hyenas, and perhaps Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) prey on Indian Crested Porcupines.
Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List. Poaching of the Indian Crested Porcupine is a conservation threat in India. It is threatened in western Asia because it is hunted for food and considered an agricultural pest. It serves as an intermediate host for Linguatula serrata, a zoonotic parasite whose definitive hosts are carnivores and humans. Much of what is known about ecology and behavior of the Indian Crested Porcupine comes from the Negev Desert; further research in other habitats across its broad distribution are warranted.
Bibliography. Agrawal (2000), Alkon (1999), Alkon & Olsvig-Whittaker (1989), Alkon & Saltz (1985, 1988), Alkon et al. (1986), Amori, Hutterer, Krystufek, Yigit, Mitsain & Palomo (2008), Arslan (2008), Boeken et al. (1995), Brown & Alkon (1990), Chesemore (1970), Corbet (1978), Corbet & Hill (1992), Corbet & Jones (1965), Fattorini & Pokheral (2012), Khan et al. (2014), Menon (2009), Nowak (1999a), Poddar-Sarkar et al. (2011), Qumsiyeh (1996), Rajabloo et al. (2015), Saltz & Alkon (1989), Sever & Mendelssohn (1988, 1989, 1991), Srinivasulu & Srinivasulu (2012), Storch (1990), van Weers (1979).
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