50 Fun Facts About Hedgehog

A hedgehog's spines are hollow hairs stiffened with which protein?

Keratin, the same protein that forms human hair and fingernails, stiffens the hollow spines; unlike porcupine quills, hedgehog spines are not barbed and do not detach easily.

Which of a hedgehog's senses is its weakest?

Sight: a hedgehog sees poorly and finds its food mainly by smell and hearing, which suits an animal that does its foraging after dark.

Which continent has no native hedgehogs at all?

Australia has no native hedgehogs, and neither do the Americas today, although an extinct hedgehog genus once lived in North America.

Each autumn, British wildlife charities ask people to check what for sleeping hedgehogs before lighting it?

A bonfire: a heap of logs and leaves is just what a hedgehog picks for its winter nest, so the RSPCA and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society both ask people to check before lighting.

What is a baby hedgehog called?

A hoglet: litters of around four or five are born blind and deaf in a nest of leaves, and the young begin foraging with their mother at about three to four weeks old.

When a hedgehog meets a strong new smell it chews the source and spreads what over its spines?

Frothy saliva: the hedgehog chews the new scent into a foam and spreads it over its spines, a ritual called self-anointing whose purpose is still debated.

In hibernation, a hedgehog's body temperature falls from about 35 °C to roughly what level?

Just above freezing: the body can cool to between 2 and 5 °C, yet most hibernating hedgehogs still wake at least once in the winter and move to a new nest.

Hedgehogs share distant ancestry with which small mammals?

Shrews: hedgehogs and shrews sit together in the order Eulipotyphla, whereas porcupines are rodents that only look similar.

How do gymnures, the hedgehog's closest relatives, differ from hedgehogs?

Gymnures, also called hairy hedgehogs, have ordinary fur, no spines; they mark their territory with scent glands whose smell is likened to rancid onion or garlic.

Which old English word for hedgehog survives today as the name of a spiny sea creature?

Sea urchins were once called sea hedgehogs. Hedgepig is another old name for the animal.

Which Shakespeare tragedy includes the line 'Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined'?

Macbeth: the Second Witch says it as the three gather at their cauldron, the hedgehog's cry being one of the signals that the time has come to start the charm.

How are a newborn hedgehog's quills arranged at birth so that the mother is not injured?

Hidden beneath the skin: a membrane covers the newborn's spines, then dries and shrinks within hours so that they push through; this first coat is later shed, which is called quilling.

A protein called erinacin gives hedgehogs some natural immunity to what?

Snake venom: erinacin in the hedgehog's muscles blocks the bleeding that viper venom causes, but there is so little of it that a viper's bite can still kill.

In which US state is it illegal to keep a hedgehog as a pet?

California bans pet hedgehogs, and as of 2019 so did Georgia, Hawaii and Pennsylvania; such rules may stem from fears that some species can carry foot-and-mouth disease.

The African pygmy hedgehog, the usual pet species, is also known by what name describing its hind feet?

Four-toed hedgehog: unlike its relatives it usually lacks the hallux, or big toe, on each hind foot, though some animals keep a small bony lump where the toe would be.

To which country did colonists carry hedgehogs from Britain in the 1860s-90s, where they are now pests?

New Zealand: colonists shipped hedgehogs out as pets and to eat farm pests, and with no natural predators there they now prey on native insects, lizards and ground-nesting birds.

Which animal is the main predator of hedgehogs in Britain?

The badger: hedgehog numbers are lower wherever badgers are plentiful, and some rescue centres will not release a hedgehog into known badger territory.

Which fast-food dessert's UK lid was redesigned in 2006 after hedgehogs got their heads stuck?

McDonald's McFlurry: hedgehogs after the leftover ice cream were getting stuck in discarded cups, and after an outcry the company shrank the opening in the lid in 2006.

British wildlife charities warn against leaving out which traditional treat for garden hedgehogs?

Milk: hedgehogs are lactose intolerant, so the old saucer of bread and milk upsets their digestion; the RSPCA suggests meaty cat or dog food and fresh water instead.

What do British conservationists call a 13-centimetre square hole cut in a garden fence for wildlife?

A hedgehog highway: a hole 13 cm square lets a hedgehog through but is too small for nearly all pets, and it matters because the animals roam a mile or two every night.

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society set up Hedgehog Street in 2011 with which other charity?

People's Trust for Endangered Species runs Hedgehog Street jointly with the BHPS, asking volunteers to make their own gardens friendlier to hedgehogs and then to recruit their neighbours.

What job does Beatrix Potter's hedgehog Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle do?

Washerwoman: Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle launders and irons the clothes of the local animals; the 1905 tale drew on Potter's pet hedgehog and Kitty MacDonald, a Scottish washerwoman, and Frederick Ashton danced the role in 1971.

The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is set in which part of England?

The Lake District: the Newlands Valley and its fells supplied the backgrounds, and the little girl Lucie was modelled on Lucie Carr, a child Potter knew there.

Sonic the Hedgehog was created in 1991 as a mascot to rival which other video game character?

Mario: Sonic's makers wanted a flagship character to take on Nintendo's plumber, so his first game, released in June 1991, was built around sheer speed.

Sonic the Hedgehog's signature colour was chosen to match what?

Sega's logo: Sonic's fur copies the company's cobalt blue, while his shoes grew out of a design inspired by Santa Claus and Michael Jackson.

Who voiced Sonic in the 2020 live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film and its sequels?

Ben Schwartz voiced Sonic in the 2020 film and its sequels; the release was put back three months so that the character could be redesigned to look more like the game's hero.

The 'hedgehog' gene, whose mutants sprout spiky bristles, was first discovered in which organism?

Fruit fly: Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus found hedgehog in 1980 while screening Drosophila for genes that pattern the body; mutant larvae were covered in bristles, and the pair shared the 1995 Nobel Prize.

Besides Sonic, mammals' other two hedgehog genes are named after which kinds of hedgehog?

Desert and Indian hedgehog: the lab's plan was to name each new gene after a real species, until postdoc Robert Riddle rebelled and called his find Sonic, after the video-game character.

Without the Sonic hedgehog protein, an embryo can at worst develop what?

A single central eye: the condition, cyclopia, also struck Idaho lambs in the 1950s whose mothers had grazed on corn lily, a plant whose toxin blocks the hedgehog signal.

Which philosopher devised the 'hedgehog's dilemma' of hedgehogs huddling for warmth?

Arthur Schopenhauer told the parable in 1851: the animals crowd together for warmth, prick one another and settle at a middle distance. In his telling they were porcupines.

Isaiah Berlin's 1953 essay contrasts the hedgehog, which knows one big thing, with which animal that knows many?

The fox: Archilochus's fragment 'the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing' gave Berlin his title, and he used it to examine Tolstoy's view of history in War and Peace.

Which 2001 business book by Jim Collins popularised the 'Hedgehog Concept'?

Good to Great, published in 2001, borrowed the idea from Berlin's essay: companies that made the leap focused on the one thing they could be best at rather than chasing many.

In Wonderland's croquet game the balls are live hedgehogs; which birds serve as the mallets?

Flamingos: Alice tucks hers under her arm, but the bird keeps twisting round to look up at her, and by the time she is ready the hedgehog has unrolled and crawled away.

The Royal Navy's Second World War weapon nicknamed the 'Hedgehog' was what kind of device?

A forward-throwing anti-submarine mortar: the Hedgehog fired a pattern of 24 contact-fused bombs ahead of the ship, and its rows of empty launcher spigots looked like spines; it sank far more U-boats per attack than depth charges.

A 'Czech hedgehog', seen on Normandy beaches and in Ukraine, is what?

An anti-tank obstacle: steel beams joined into a spiky star, named for Czechoslovakia, which first set them along its border with Germany before the Second World War.

The hedgehog mushroom, which has spines instead of gills, is also sold under which sugary name?

Sweet tooth: the name plays on the tiny teeth that hang under the cap of Hydnum repandum, which is also called the wood hedgehog or pig's trotter.

In Yuri Norstein's animated short Hedgehog in the Fog, whom is the hedgehog walking to visit for tea?

A bear cub: the hedgehog sets off with a jar of raspberry jam to visit his friend the bear cub for tea and to count the stars, but wanders into fog and sees a white horse.

Hedgehog in the Fog, voted the best animated film ever by animators in 2003, was made in 1975 in which country?

Soviet Union: Yuri Norstein made the fog by laying a sheet of very thin tracing paper over the hedgehog figure and lifting it toward the camera frame by frame until the figure dissolved.

What is narrator Renée Michel's job in The Elegance of the Hedgehog?

Concierge: Renée Michel is the secretly erudite concierge of a grand Paris apartment building in Muriel Barbery's 2006 novel, played by Josiane Balasko in the 2009 film Le Hérisson.

In Monty Python's 'Piranha Brothers' sketch, what is the giant imaginary hedgehog that terrifies Dinsdale called?

Spiny Norman: the hedgehog's size swells and shrinks with Dinsdale's mood, and at the end of the sketch it turns out to be real, looming over London landmarks bellowing 'Dinsdale!'

Which Roman writer claimed that hedgehogs roll on fallen fruit to carry it home on their spines?

Pliny the Elder set the tale down in his Natural History, where the animals spear fruit for the winter, and medieval bestiaries went on picturing laden hedgehogs for centuries.

Rather than curling up, the long-eared hedgehog of Central Asia usually responds to a predator how?

It runs or leaps at the threat: the long-eared hedgehog is much faster than its West European cousin, though it can still withdraw into the muscular pouch that holds its spines.

The desert hedgehog, one of the smallest species, is found in which region?

The Sahara and the Middle East: desert animal or not, the desert hedgehog still hibernates through cold spells, and its breeding season begins only when that sleep ends.

Madagascar's spiny tenrecs mimic hedgehogs but are unrelated. What is this an example of?

Two tenrec species grew hardened spines and learned to curl up independently. Tenrecs are closer to elephants and aardvarks than to hedgehogs.

In Irish folklore, a hedgehog leaving its hole on which day foretold good weather, as the groundhog does in America?

St Brigid's Day, 1 February, counted as the first day of spring in Irish tradition, so a hedgehog seen out of its hole that day was read as a promise of mild weather.

Among Bedouins in the Middle East, hedgehog meat is traditionally eaten as a medicine for what?

Rheumatism: Bedouin tradition holds that hedgehog meat treats rheumatism and arthritis; hedgehogs were also eaten in ancient Egypt, and some late-medieval European recipes call for the meat.

Roughly how many spines does an adult hedgehog carry?

About 6,000: the RSPCA puts the count between 5,000 and 7,000, and each spine is shed and replaced over time in the same way as a human hair.

On the 2020 Red List for Britain's Mammals, the hedgehog was classed as what?

Vulnerable: the 2020 Red List for Britain's Mammals, compiled by the Mammal Society, classed the hedgehog as vulnerable to extinction after steep declines in rural populations.

On which Scottish islands did a controversial hedgehog cull begin in 2003 to protect ground-nesting birds?

Outer Hebrides: after 690 hedgehogs had been killed on North Uist and Benbecula, the cull was suspended, and animals caught there were instead taken to the mainland and released.

Which UK body challenged a Welsh publican's 'Hedgehog Flavoured Crisps' in the 1980s for containing no hedgehog?

The Office of Fair Trading said the name broke trade descriptions law, as the taste came from pork fat and herbs; the landlord settled by rebranding them Hedgehog Flavour Crisps.