IiI—ON A NEW SUBSPECIES OF PORCUPINE 
FROM NEBRASKA! 
BY MYRON HARMON SWENK 
Nebraska porcupines all belong to the yellow-haired species 
(Erethizon epixanthum), and these animals have never been 
abundant in the state. Formerly, however, they were much more 
numerous than today, and enjoyed a more extended range in the 
state than they do at the present time. Up to about 1885 these 
animals occurred across the northern portion of Nebraska east at 
least to Pierce and Madison counties, there being records of four 
specimens secured along the small streams tributary to the Elk- 
horn river in these two counties between 1870 and 1885. Also, 
in March, 1900, a specimen was killed along the Republican river 
at Orleans, Harlan county, Nebraska, by Eskey Cobb and is now 
in the A. M. Brooking collection. As early as 1880 Aughey 
referred to these animals as being present in the state in small 
numbers only. 
All of the more recent records of the occurrence of porcupines 
in Nebraska have come from the counties west of the 1ooth 
meridian, and mostly from the Pine Ridge of Sioux and Dawes 
counties and the North Platte valley in Scottsbluff and Banner 
counties. However, in this study I have carefully examined four 
mounted porcupines which are in the Rees Heaton collection and 
which were taken at intervals up to 1903 in Frontier and other 
western counties. Also, a subadult female porcupine was cap- 
tured alive with a lasso near the Roseberry ranch in the Cherry 
county sandhills north of Mullen, Hooker county, September 12, 
1914, by Carl Kiehl, quite away from any timber. This specimen 
was taken to Omaha and sold there, whence it came into my 
possession by purchase, and is now in the University collection. 
In August of that same year (1914), a porcupine was killed in a 
1 Publication No. 2 of the Nebraska State Biological Survey. 
is 
