Hedgehogs: Ten things you never knew about these prickly little critters
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Ten things you never knew about hedgehogs
Fossils suggest hedgehog-like animals have been around for about 15 million years.
A hedgehog’s spines are modified hairs. An adult may have as many 7,000 spines.
Hedeghogs have a unique “self-anointing” activity which sees them covering themselves with frothy saliva, flicking it over their spines with the tongue. It is believed to be connected with them encountering strange smells or tastes.
How do hedgehogs mate? Noisily. Males are attracted by a female’s scent and they enjoy a prolonged and noisy courtship. Females are left to raise their young alone.
Youngsters are called hoglets. Litters range from two of six youngsters who stay in the nest for six weeks before wandering off.
They are great friend’s of the gardener, eating a huge numbers of pests such as slugs.
A hedgehog can walk up to two miles in a night on the lookout for food.
Hedgehog numbers have decreased alarmingly over the past few decades, declining from an estimated 36 million the 1950s to fewer than a million today.
Pesticides, loss of habitat and being killed crossing roads have all played a part in the hedgehog’s demise.
You can help hedgehogs by supporting the British Hedegehog Preservation Society. See www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/
