Pro prickly hedgehogs know everything from young to old. But in nature there are many other animals with needles, short and long. Moreover, they live not only on land, but also in sea depths. And some of them have needles that are not only sharp, but also poisonous, so an attempt to “get to know” their owners can end very sadly.
mammals
AT different countries mammals live in which, in the process of evolution, their hair has changed and turned into long needles. They serve as protection against natural enemies. Some animals have spiky hair:
Hedgehogs. They are well known and live in different countries. A total of 7 genera and 23 species are known. The smallest individuals grow up to only 10 cm, the largest - up to 45. Hair-thorns are short (maximum 5 cm), but there are quite a lot of them - up to 10,000. Hedgehogs lead night image life, hibernate in winter. They live alone: a whole family can only be found while the cubs are with their mothers.
Contrary to popular belief, hedgehogs are active predators, and they have good immunity to poisons, they can eat poisonous snakes and insects. And berries, fruits and mushrooms are far from the main "dishes" in the diet, since some types of hedgehogs do not even eat them, but they can eat carrion. Animals usually do not dig their burrows, preferring to occupy ready-made ones, since the structure of the hedgehog's paws is clearly not adapted to digging. At the slightest danger, hedgehogs curl up into a ball, protecting their soft abdomen, head and neck from predators, on which only soft fur grows.
An interesting fact: many species of hedgehogs are excellent swimmers and even climb trees. They are also quite aggressive, and can sometimes fearlessly attack an attacker and bite.
Tenrec. Some species of Madagascar tenrec are very similar to hedgehogs. The large and small tenrecs are completely covered with spines; in other species, the piercing cover can be partial (sometimes only on the back of the head). These animals are active predators, feeding on insects.
Animals are able to change their body temperature, so their activity depends on environment(to survive the cold, they hibernate).
Echidnas. These amazing marsupials with a long nose and needles live in Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania.
Echidnas are unique, but they have so much in common with a wide variety of animals that it can be difficult to understand who they really are:
- mammals: yes, but marsupials, and without papillae, milk is simply sprayed into the bag where the newborn is located;
- oviparous: yes, echidna babies hatch from eggs and move into their mother's pouch;
- anteaters: thin a long nose- an ideal device for eating ants, namely, they are the main food of echidnas, but at the same time they do not belong to the anteater family;
- hibernate like bears: yes, and when low temperatures their body also “cools down” to 4 0, this is at normal +32 0 (which is not very typical for warm-blooded ones), and they breathe only once every 3 minutes.
And echidnas are also long-lived (they live up to 50 years), they are good swimmers, and even large bodies of water are not an obstacle for them. They do not dig holes, although when danger arises they burrow into the ground, leaving only barbed protection in sight.
like this unusual beast- echidna, covered with numerous needles (and even on the paws they are) 5-6 cm long. It is predominantly nocturnal, feeds on ants and insects, which it catches with a long sticky tongue (25 cm), capable of "flying out" from the mouth for 18 cm.
This is an animal with large black and white needles up to half a meter long. It is found in Europe, America, Africa, Asia, India, Transcaucasia, leads a terrestrial lifestyle. An American species of porcupine (arboreal) is an excellent tree climber, and almost all are good swimmers. Porcupines are rodents, especially large individuals grow up to 0.9 m and gain up to 27 kg.
Long needles lie on the back at rest, but when threatened, they rise vertically with the help of the dorsal muscles. At this time, the animal turns its back to the aggressor, stomps, snorts, hisses and rattles with long needles like rattlesnake- tail scales.
An interesting fact: the porcupine not only frightens, it abruptly and with lightning speed jumps back at the offender and returns to starting position. A lot of spines remain in the muzzle of a predator: they are hollow and easily broken off.
Several myths are associated with the prickly protection of these animals:
- The spines are filled with poison: in other animals this is true, but in mammals there are no poisonous glands. The legend arose due to the fact that needles often cause inflammation - the terrestrial lifestyle of these animals makes thorns a source of infections. As a result, the injection sites become inflamed and sore.
- You can put something on them. This is not so, modified hair is very fragile and breaks easily. Pictures with hedgehogs carrying an apple or a mushroom on their backs are fiction.
- They “shoot”: this is not so, it’s just that those who want to feast on a hedgehog, echidna or porcupine will have fragments of needles in their paw or on their muzzle, which will subsequently deliver many unpleasant minutes.
In addition to hedgehogs and similar mammals, other "spiky" animals and insects also live on land.
Who has needles
Needles as a means of protection are used:
Lizards. In some lizards, the skin has changed and turned into spikes or sharp plates. In Africa, the belttail lives, whose body is covered with sharp prickly plates. When danger arises, the belttail grabs its own tail with its teeth, turning into a prickly wheel. Moloch lizard from Australia, brightly colored, its horny shields have changed and turned into spikes that cover the entire body. Despite her intimidating appearance, she is harmless.
A small (about 1 cm female and 2-3 mm male) spider with 6 thorns is absolutely harmless to humans, and never crawls into housing on its own. The spider got its name due to the 6 spikes located on the back.
Grasshopper Spiny Devil. The small Ecuadorian grasshopper (7 cm) is perfectly protected from enemies due to its bright coloration and numerous sharp needles. Moreover, he himself is able to scare even a small monkey: the grasshopper takes a threatening pose and opens its mini-jaws.
And the most "needle" on earth can be called caterpillars. Most of them have numerous spiny bristles. Moreover, in some they are quite poisonous and can cause serious intoxication. To determine in advance whether this is so is sometimes quite simple: than prettier caterpillar, the more poisonous its sharp bristles may be.
underwater inhabitants
Among the inhabitants underwater kingdom there are also animals with rather large needles:
These underwater inhabitants can be found in almost all seas and oceans; only the Black and Caspian Sea. There are many types of sea urchins, their spines are large and small. Even a simple injection can bring a lot of unpleasant minutes: their long needles break easily. And remain in the human body. Some species are poisonous.
Hedgehog fish. It lives in tropical seas near coral reefs. Individual specimens, even in their normal state, are quite large, grow up to 90 cm, and the whole body is covered with spines. At the slightest danger, the fish swallows water and air, turning into a large prickly and rather dangerous ball. Hedgehog fish is no less poisonous than the famous puffer fish.
Lion fish. Slow and very beautiful fish-lion is reliably protected by long spines. There are 18-19 of them on the body, and each is poisonous. The bright color serves as a camouflage: among the colorful coral reefs of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the lionfish can go unnoticed.
Mother nature does not give all creatures the opportunity to protect themselves from predators. There are harmless worms that are easily eaten by birds, and there are many types of herbs that are ingested by ruminants. But there are some species of animals that somehow can stand up for themselves. There are flowers that are very bad smell, scaring away those who want to eat them. There are poisonous creatures, one glance at the motley color is enough not to make acquaintances with them. And there are animals that defend themselves from attack with their thorns and thorns, and we will talk about ten of the most entertaining of them today.
Moloch. This lizard lives in Australia, in a dry and sandy area. It grows up to 8 cm long, feeds exclusively on ants. It would seem like this little creature will be easy prey for most predators, but it is not.
The whole body of Moloch is covered with sharp and hard spines, and not everyone manages to overcome this protection. In addition, the lizard can disguise itself as the color of the environment and has a pair of spikes on its back, creating the illusion of a false head, while the real head is hidden in the sand in case of danger.
– amazing creature, covered with many thorns, which is why it was named by resemblance to. This creature has very few enemies that can overcome its defenses - this is a man and a sea otter. 
Some species of needles are poisonous, and believe me, no one wants to eat poisonous creatures. feed on sea urchins algae, which are scraped off with the help of jaws in the lower part of the body. By the way, with their help they move. In nature, there are 940 species of these "thorns" of various colors, but purple and pink shades prevail among them. Sea urchins live and breed up to 200 years.
Or striped lionfish named after its fan-shaped lateral and dorsal fin resembling a lion's mane. 
So that no one touches the fish, it has developed two methods of protection - a protective color that masks them, and poisonous spikes at the end of the dorsal fin. This poison is very strong (the lionfish is considered one of the most poisonous fish in the world), causes paralysis of the respiratory and skeletal muscles in humans. Mostly goes to inexperienced scuba divers trying to touch the beautiful underwater inhabitant. The lion fish grows up to 30 cm in length and up to a kilogram in weight.
hedgehog fish- interesting little swimmers look like puffer fish, but they have spikes all over the surface of the body. 
These spikes, as you might guess, are poisonous, as well as all the organs of the fish. If you touch or eat this "delicacy", you will be paralyzed. If this sea creature in danger, it swells up to the size of a soccer ball, which significantly reduces the chances of being eaten. By the way, hedgehog fish have teeth that grow throughout their lives. To grind them off, the “prickly ball” is forced to gnaw on the corals around which it lives.
It is also sometimes called " prickly", because of the presence of an elongated tubular muzzle similar to this animal and a long sticky tongue. 
The lower part of the echidna's body is covered with brown hard hair, and the sides and back are really studded with sharp needles. The paws of the animal are equipped with strong claws, which serve to open the shelters of its favorite food - ants. Having dug a hole, the echidna licks up to hundreds of insects at a time.
Gone far away from her hedgehog, whose body is also covered with a thick needle-like "fur coat". 
When the animal is in danger, it curls up into a ball, becoming like a prickly ball. Despite its small size, the hedgehog is a predator, eating small animals, worms, insects and spiders. Separately cost his love for the eggs of birds nesting on the ground: snipes and waders. Because of this activity, in some places the seemingly harmless hedgehog is considered a pest.
Next on our list is a spider, which would be no different from hundreds of other web-spinning members of the family, if not for the presence of six large spines on the abdomen. Large - this is if you measure them with the size of the body. 
Himself spiked spider
grows a little over a centimeter in length, and then only females reach such dimensions, males are about three times inferior to them in size. These creatures are absolutely harmless, and they only get into the premises if someone specifically brings them there.
And this “prickly” representative has already met us on the list - this is a caterpillar beautiful butterfly Automeris.io. 
The pale green body of this larva is covered with many tufts, touching which leads to itching and burning, since the needles are poisonous. Therefore, when meeting with this caterpillar, just admire it from afar, so that there are no unpleasant consequences.
This insect of the grasshopper superfamily looks very strange: its entire body is bright green in color and covered with thin spikes that are even on the limbs. 
Its head is larger than the head of a grasshopper, and it is crowned with a kind of “crown” of reddish thorns. We do not recommend touching this creature - the spikes easily pierce the skin, causing pain.
Looks the most original striped tenrec living in Madagascar. With a body length of 15 to 18 cm, it weighs from 80 to 280 grams. Its body is covered with black and yellow spines interspersed with coarse hairs. The coat is designed to protect tenrecs from those who dream of eating them: mongooses and fosses.
Behind the ears of the animals grows a "comb" of jagged needles yellow color, serving as the main weapon in the struggle for survival. Sensing a threat, the kids tilt their heads and begin to rustle. If threats do not help, needles fly into the predator, separated from the body by sharp turns of the head. Some sounds made by tenereks are audible even to humans.
Tenrecs are equally active at any time of the day, but, like hedgehogs, hibernate in winter. They can climb trees, although they do so very rarely. They usually feed on worms extracted from under the fallen leaves and roots of plants. Burrows are built for living, some of which are able to accommodate a group of adults.
You can meet tenrec in wooded areas with high humidity or in the rice plantations of Madagascar.
Niramin - Mar 8th, 2016
Tenrecs (lat. Tenrecidae) or bristly hedgehogs - big family mammals (10 genera and 24 species), whose homeland is Madagascar. Several species can be found in Central and East Africa. People brought the common tenrec to the islands in Indian Ocean- Seychelles (Mahe and Praslin), Reunion, Mauritius, Comoros.
These animals prefer places with dense vegetation and an abundance of foliage on the ground. Often they settle near swamps and small reservoirs. They avoid dry areas.
The body length of an adult tenrec, depending on the species, reaches 4-40 cm, and the tail - 1-22 cm. It is covered with fur (from grayish to red-brown), coarse hair or thorns. The muzzle is long, with small round eyes. Females and males bristly hedgehogs look the same.
Adult tenrecs are solitary, avoiding public life. In search of food, the animals can move far from their home - a mink dug in the ground or a hollow of a fallen tree. Activity is shown at night.
Males and females meet only from October to December for mating. The offspring are born after about 65 days, and in one brood there are up to 20 hedgehogs - a record in the world of mammals. After 6 months, they leave their mother, who raised them alone.
Tenrecs eat a variety of things. They eat both insects, snails and worms, and small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. The menu also includes fresh leaves and fruits.
In Madagascar, these animals are very fond of. They are valued as insect hunters and eat their meat. However, on Seychelles and Reunion, where they were brought by people, they are considered pests that destroy the local ecosystem.
Photo: Common tenrec. 
Photo: Striped tenrec. 
Video: chirping striped tenrec
Video: Tenrec family in Vallee de Mai/ Praslin island (Seychelles)
Video: Madagascar Hedgehog - Tenrec
Everyone knows that nature has awarded each representative of the fauna with certain mechanisms of protection against threats that come from external environment. And animals with needles are quite remarkable in this respect. Some of them are so "insured" against attacks from living beings that they represent serious danger even for human health.
It should be noted that animals with needles are characterized by the fact that they have a dense prickly layer of skin, so getting to them vulnerabilities almost impossible. They also carefully protect the “bare” areas, immediately curling up into a ball when danger arises.
So, which animals with needles are the most protected from adverse conditions outside world?
On the land
First of all, this Australian echidna. Her needles can hurt anyone who gets too close to her. The size of the echidna corresponds to the size of the hare. If the animal is distracted while it is eating, it will immediately burrow into the ground in such a way that only the protruding needles are visible, and will remain in this position until the troublemaker leaves. Also, in order to protect the echidna, like a hedgehog, it can curl up into a ball; it has sharp needles even on its paws. In total, there are over 5 thousand spines on her body.
What other animals with spines have reliable defense mechanisms? These include the armadillo lizard that lives on the island of Madagascar. This reptile has prickly hard plates that cover most her body. She uses her "weapon" in two ways. On the tail, the spikes act as a burrow protection. If a threat arises from somewhere, the animal sticks its tail into its mouth, thus transforming into a “studded” wheel. Not every representative of the fauna is able to cope with such an obstacle.
What is the name of an animal with needles, in which they are thick, long and always thrown back? Surely, every child knows the answer to this question. Of course, it's a porcupine. He is also perfectly "armed" in order to withstand external stimuli. As soon as a threat arises, he immediately straightens his spines and begins to shake his tail, while making a rasp that is more like a hiss of a snake.
If his opponent did not react to such a warning, then in the next moment the animal releases needles directly into the muzzle of his offender, who, in the end, no matter how strong he possesses, is forced to retreat, since the risk of being stabbed poisonous thorns very large.
In water
What animals with spines have increased protective immunity when swimming in the sea? Among them, one can single out the porcupine fish, which is also called Its needles are deadly. In their natural state, the spines of the water dweller are "smoothed" along the body. At the slightest suspicion of danger, he immediately absorbs great amount water, its needles stand on end and the sea urchin turns into a large prickly ball.
This is another confirmation of how unusual and amazing representatives of the fauna can be.
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