Porcupines
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40 free Porcupines trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Porcupines are some of the most recognisable animals on Earth, and some of the most misunderstood. Two separate families of spiny rodents share the name, one in Africa, Asia and southern Europe and one in the Americas, and almost everything people think they know about how the quills work deserves a second look. This quiz covers the whole animal: how porcupines defend themselves, what they eat through the seasons, how they court and raise their young, which predators dare to take them on, and where the different species live. It also follows the porcupine into human culture, from Indigenous quillwork and royal heraldry to philosophy, cartoons, place names and the dinner table. It is written for curious animal lovers, students, teachers and quiz hosts alike. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave knowing more than when you started.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which popular belief about porcupine quills, often repeated in stories and on screen, is actually a myth?
They can be shot
The idea that they can be shot is the myth: quills are only loosely attached, so they come away on contact when a predator touches the animal or its lashing tail.
Q 02What is the name for a baby porcupine, born with soft quills that soon harden?
Porcupette
A porcupette usually arrives alone: North American porcupines give birth to a single young, which can climb and forage after about two weeks.
Q 03Porcupine quills are modified hairs made of which protein, also found in human hair and fingernails?
Keratin
Keratin forms every quill, and a muscle at the base of each one lets a porcupine stand its spines on end when it is excited or alarmed.
Q 04Roughly how many quills cover the body of an adult North American porcupine?
About 30,000
About 30,000 quills cover everything except the underbelly, face and feet, and they double as insulation through the winter.
Q 05The word porcupine comes from Latin and French roots meaning a thorny version of which animal?
Pig
Pig is the root, from the Latin porcus joined to spina for spine, and a regional American nickname for the animal is still quill pig.
Q 06Which cat-sized member of the weasel family is one of the few predators to hunt porcupines?
Fisher
The fisher bites again and again at a porcupine's unprotected face, and where fishers were wiped out, porcupine numbers climbed and timber damage followed.
Q 07The largest porcupine is the third-largest living rodent, behind the beaver and which South American animal?
Capybara
The capybara is the largest living rodent, and like New World porcupines it belongs to the caviomorphs, rodents whose ancestors are thought to have rafted across the Atlantic.
Q 08Porcupine meatballs, a Great Depression staple, get their spiky look from which ingredient poking out?
Rice
Rice goes into the ground beef uncooked, then swells and pokes out as the meatballs simmer, traditionally in canned tomato soup.
Q 09Which animated musical film features Ash, a punk-rock porcupine voiced by Scarlett Johansson?
Sing
Sing follows Ash as she breaks up with her cheating boyfriend Lance and then wins over the crowd with a rock song she wrote herself.
Q 10Why do North American porcupines so often end up stabbed by their own quills?
They fall out of trees
They fall out of trees while stretching for tender buds at the tips of branches, and a fatty antibiotic coating on the quills helps stop the wounds becoming infected.
Q 11Which German philosopher used porcupines huddling for warmth as a parable about human closeness?
Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer published the tale in 1851: the animals crowd together against the cold, prick one another, and settle on keeping a polite distance.
Q 12The crested porcupine is the only porcupine species found wild in Europe, living in which country?
Italy
Italy has them on the mainland and in Sicily, while the rest of the species lives across North Africa and much of sub-Saharan Africa.
Q 13The hollow tail quills of a crested porcupine make a warning hiss often compared to which reptile?
Rattlesnake
A rattlesnake is the usual comparison: the quill tips are broad, hollow and thin-walled, so a shake of the tail sets them buzzing.
Q 21Porcupines of the genus Coendou grip branches in South American forests with which unspined feature?
Prehensile tail
A prehensile tail curls its tip upward around branches, and on the Brazilian porcupine it accounts for about half of the animal's total length.
Q 22Crested porcupines hoard thousands of which objects, gnawing them for calcium and to sharpen their teeth?
Bones
Bones found on night-time foraging trips are carried home and stored in an underground chamber or cave, sometimes by the thousand.
Q 23Porcupine quillwork was a major Indigenous decorative art before the introduction of which rival material?
Glass beads
Glass beads took over much of the decoration once done with dyed quills, in an art form that is unique to North America.
Q 14North American porcupines chew boots, tool handles and plywood because they crave which nutrient?
Salt
Salt is scarce in a diet of plants, so porcupines gnaw anything carrying sodium, from sweat-soaked gloves to the adhesives in plywood.
Q 15When a North American porcupine raises its quills, the white stripe on its back mimics which animal?
Skunk
The skunk look works because most of a porcupine's predators hunt at night and are colour-blind, so bold black and white is the clearest warning on offer.
Q 16When its warnings fail, how does a crested porcupine typically charge at an attacker?
Rear end first
Rear end first is the rule, because that aims the thickest quills at the enemy, and such charges are known to have killed lions and leopards.
Q 17According to San Diego Zoo, a family of porcupines goes by which fitting collective name?
A prickle
A prickle can be a real household: young Old World porcupines share the burrow with their parents and siblings until they are about two years old.
Q 18Old World and New World porcupines each developed quills independently, an example of which process?
Convergent evolution
Convergent evolution explains the lookalikes: New World porcupines are closer kin to several other rodent families than they are to Old World porcupines.
Q 19Porcupines must keep gnawing because, as in all rodents, which teeth keep growing throughout life?
Incisors
Incisors in rodents grind against each other into a chisel edge, and porcupines have no canine teeth at all, leaving a gap behind the front pair.
Q 20In winter, North American porcupines survive mainly on conifer needles and which other food?
Bark
Bark, especially the soft inner layer, carries them through the cold months, and heavy feeding on a single tree can damage or even kill it.
Q 24Lakota women traditionally gathered porcupine quills for craftwork by throwing which item over the animal?
A blanket
A blanket did the job safely: the startled porcupine left its quills stuck in the cloth, ready to be picked out, dyed and stitched onto leather.
Q 25Which French king adopted the porcupine as his personal badge, displaying it on buildings and cannons?
Louis XII
Louis XII presented his kingdom as a porcupine, a supposedly invincible beast, and carved porcupines still mark his wing of the château at Blois.
Q 26The Porcupine Mountains, nicknamed the Porkies, rise beside Lake Superior in which US state?
Michigan
Michigan's Upper Peninsula holds them, and the Ojibwa are said to have named the range because its outline resembled a crouching porcupine.
Q 27The Porcupine herd, known for one of the longest land migrations of any mammal, is made up of which animals?
Caribou
Caribou of this herd trek between inland winter forests and calving grounds on the Beaufort Sea coast, a route the Gwich'in people built their communities around.
Q 28During courtship, a male North American porcupine brings the female into season by spraying her with what?
Urine
Urine is the signal, and the pair then mate on the ground with their skin tightened and quills held flat to avoid injury.
Q 29North American porcupines can learn which tricky things and still remember them a hundred days later?
Complex mazes
Complex mazes suit a strong memory, which sits oddly with the rest of the picture: the animal is nearsighted, slow-moving and solitary.
Q 30Which DreamWorks film features Lou and Penny, a porcupine couple voiced by Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara?
Over the Hedge
Over the Hedge also gives the couple triplets, and it is the three young porcupines who drive the van back to the neighbourhood at the climax.