Smart Weapons 



With an arsenal of quills and chemicals, the porcupine mounts 

 one of nature's most robust defenses against predators. 



By Uldis Roze 



It is a clear, midsummer midnight in the Catskill 

 Mountains of upstate New York, and I'm try- 

 ing to capture Loretta, an adult female porcu- 

 pine. In preparation, I'm wearing heavy vinyl gloves 

 to protect myself from Loretta 's bristling armor of 

 quills. I plan to scoop her up and place her tem- 

 porarily into a snug, three-gallon picnic cooler, then 

 make some measurements and observations for my 

 research on the social structure of her species. 



But Loretta has other plans. She strikes my glove 

 hard with her tail. The thick vinyl stops most of the 

 quills, but many sharp points still pierce the fabric and 

 dig painfully into my fingers and palm. My hand feels 

 useless from the pain. Round one goes to Loretta. 



Contact with a porcupine's tail leaves quills embedded in, and 

 even piercing through, a heavy vinyl glove. Removing a well- 

 rooted quill can take more than ten pounds of force. 



Porcupines, for the most part, have a sweet and 

 trusting disposition that comes only to those who 

 have little reason to be afraid. Of course, quills are 

 the animal's best-known defense. Each quill is be- 

 tween one-half and four inches long, with one-way 

 barbs for burrowing into the victim's body and an 

 antibiotic coating to limit the damage if the porcu- 

 pine quills itself. The quills number in the tens of 

 thousands and cover every inch of its body, with the 



exception of its face, belly, and the undersides of its 

 limbs and tail. 



But there is more to a sense of security than mere- 

 ly possessing an advanced weapon. If your enemies 

 attack you, you may win in the end, but you still risk 

 being injured in the process. To avoid a fight at all, 

 you have to deter an attack with warnings. Your en- 

 emies have to realize that you possess your weapon, 

 and be reminded, in no uncertain terms, that if you're 

 attacked, you will use it. Thus porcupines broadcast 

 a distinct, pungent warning odor when their quills 

 are erected. Furthermore, the quills contain a fluo- 

 rescent material that brightens the quills at night, 

 when the porcupine is most likely to meet preda- 

 tors. Those evolutionary adaptations ensure a safe in- 

 fancy for porcupine offspring and relatively long life 

 for the adult — one radio-tagged female lived in my 

 Catskills study area for twenty-one years. 



I strip off the quill-perforated glove with my teeth, 

 and finish the capture barehanded. I clap the cool- 

 er's lid over Loretta to immobilize her dangerous tail 

 and lower back. Little drops of blood speckle my 

 hand and fingers. But I have been lucky — none of 

 the quill tips have broken off to travel deeper into 

 my body. I weigh my prickly friend, note that she 

 is lactating, and then let her go. She moves oft briskly 

 to her baby in the woods. 



But Loretta has left something of herself behind — 

 a small forest of quills embedded in my rubberized 

 glove. To use the glove again, I must pull out all the 

 quills. But when I start pulling, I am struck by how 

 firmly the quills are anchored in the glove. So in- 

 stead of just finishing the job with fingers or long- 

 nose pliers, I decide to measure how much force is 

 needed to withdraw each quill. 



I have an accurate spring balance, with a maxi- 

 mum capacity of 10.5 ounces. All I have to do is at- 

 tach an alligator clip to the spring and grip each quill 

 with the clip while I give a pull. I tally eighty-four 

 quills, and I measure 6.7 ounces of force per quill, 

 on average, to extract each one of them. In fact, my 



NATURAL HISTORY March 2006 



