The thorny issue of Irish hedgehogs

PERHAPS it’s a figment of my imagination, but there seem to be a lot of dead hedgehogs on the roads just now.

Hedgehogs have been around for a very long time but, when this little animal evolved its protective spines, the threats to it were very different from those it faces today. Hedgehogs, however, are not moving with the times.

Your average hedgehog has about 6,000 spines. Made of keratin, finger-nail material, each one lasts for about a year-and-a-half before it’s replaced by a new one. Muscles, just under the skin, raise the spines if the animal feels threatened and a flap of spine-covered skin is pulled down over the head. Another flap covers the anus so that the body is totally enclosed in a prickly ball. Baby hedgehogs are born in a bag so that their tiny spines don’t injure their mothers during delivery.