Indian Crested Porcupine

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Hystrix indica

Poached extensively for its meat and for use in traditional medicine this hardy rodent is a survivor. Quite common but secretive and nocturnal its tough to find one in daylight .Believed to have been the cause of many celebrated villains of Corbett and Anderson, it seems to have a habit of using the same foraging trails especially while leaving and approaching it borrow and this make it easy for poachers to fix gear wire snares along these trails. The funny part is that these same burrows have multiple entry /exits points which it seems to use only when sensing danger. Unfortunately evolution has not quite caught up to the dangerous ingenuity of a man made snare…..

500D,55-250, 250mm AE,F5.6, ISO3200, SS 1/13, -2 EC. shot in the light of vehicle head lamp .C&C welcome.

Regards
Roopak

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Nice rare image Roopak. Well done. I like the info you have shared. Where was this shot, and at what time?
TFS

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Nice Image and a good write up. The quills (i hope thats what its called) look nice. The glittering eyes also add effect to the image. Am curious to know the location of the image too.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Its quite rare to sight a porcupine. Lucky you could also photograph it. Good you got it facing towards you. Nice eye contact. We had sighted it a few years back at night in BR hills on the main road. Thanks for the detailed information.

[Suraj Sreedhar]

Nice to see one.Lovely photograph of a rare nocturnal species.
TFS

[Bhargava Srivari]

It is the first time I am seeing an image of this animal in relatively open area. Well done :thumbup1: Is it true that this animal runs backwards when it intends to attack another threatening animal? Nice to see the sharp quills.

tfs

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Thanks all for the comments. This was shot on top of a small hillock in my native village (Arrikulam) on Calicut outskirts. It is quite common to see it here as in most of the country side, but its difficult to photograph. Infact if you take an intrest in tracking this one of the animals which leaves plenty of evidence of its prescence and movements.

Bhargava- you are right , it does move very quickly and that forms its primary defence. As we all know shooting quills is just a myth.

Regards
Roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice to see a porcupine. In Corbett you can often see them in the night near the forest rest houses. Good information.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice to see a photograph of The Indian Porcupine.Both its backward move at a fair pace,when alarmed, with rattling sound of hollow tail quills and bristling out its body quills at once and forward run with quills subsiding suddenly when the danger is gone,have been observed by me just in front of the Jeep in the evening safari in Hazaribagh N.P. long back.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild