See Two Brave Porcupines Flex Their Massive Spikes To Fend Off An Attacking Leopard

When you think of porcupines, you might picture them as small. However, in the video below, you see just how big they can get — enough to hold their own against a leopard! Watch the video through the end, until you see how many baby porcupines the adults are protecting. Their flawless coordination is sure to surprise and impress you.

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How Do Porcupines Defend Themselves?

Soft hair covers the bodies of porcupines, but their tails, sides, and backs are equipped with sharp quills. They’re not noticeable when a porcupine is feeling comfortable — they kind of look like slick-backed hair. However, if a porcupine senses danger and is in defense mode, those sharp, piercing quills stand erect. It’s a common misconception that porcupines shoot their quills out when defending themselves but that’s not how they work. The sharp quills eject from their bodies only if a predator gets too close. They pierce into the skin of the predator and get stuck, often persuading even the most persistent predator to back off. Nobody likes a meal that hurts.

Porcupine Families

Although porcupines tend to be solitary creatures, when they have a small family, they travel together in a group called a prickle. Their young are called porcupettes. When they’re born, they are equipped with all they need except they still need to learn how to find their own food. They hang out with their moms for somewhere between five and 12 months, taking lessons from the best. In some species, the dads stick around and the porcupettes learn from both how to forage and stay safe from predators.

Porcupine Parents Defend Their Young

When the video below starts, you have a view of a paved road at Kruger National Park in South Africa. A leopard is running in from the left toward a prickle in the center of the road. As soon as it approaches, the two large porcupines turn their back to it, their quills erect in full defense mode. They work perfectly orchestrated, keeping tabs on the leopard’s location and quickly shifting their bodies to present it with only their sharpest, most injurious bits.

At times, they get more aggressive, rushing backward, quills pointed toward the leopard, forcing it to back up. It isn’t until one of the adult porcupines engages in this counterattack that you see the two adults are shielding a little porcupette. Suddenly, it becomes evident that’s what the leopard is going after. It circles around to the other side, where it has a better opportunity to grab hold of the porcupette. For a second, it looks like it has the porcupette in its claws. Its two paws are reaching in but just as you think it’s game over for the porcupette, it shoots out the other side, running from the threat and then back under cover.