Dreadlocks? Mohawks? Spiked punk jair? Those trendy 'dos are strictly amateur compared to what porcupines have done with their hair.

The thousands of quills that turn a porcupine into a walking pin-cushion (with the pointy ends out) are actually modified hairs. A punk teenager’s dyed spikes may seem threatening, but they are nothing like the true arsenal of spikes covering the tail and back of a porcupine.

It’s not the quills that you first see when you meet a porcupine. Long, wiry guard hairs give the animal its Albert Einstein look. They conceal the jacket of short, stiff quills, each about three inches long, that cover the animal from eyebrows to tail-tip. Only the face, legs, belly and underside of the tail are quill-free. One animal may wear as many as 30,000 quills.

Quills grow from a follicle, like all hair, but yank on the hair of a human and the scalp holds on tight. Not so with a porcupine. When the quills stop growing, they shrink at the base. Now loose in their sockets, they easily pull out of the animal. A needle-sharp point tips each quill, with tiny barbs that overlap like roof shingles and make it difficult and painful to pull out the imbedded quills. As with hairs, new quills will grow in place of the old.

Contrary to folklore, porcupines do not throw their quills. But they do have control of the muscles from which the hairs grow. When a porcupine is calm, the quills lie down close to the body. Despite their impressive armament, porcupines are not aggressive and prefer to waddle away from danger. If threatened, the porcupine bristles, raising its quills and turning itself into a walking cactus. Moving in a defensive circle, it keeps its tail pointed toward the threat. If an enemy moves in close, the porcupine swings its muscular, quill-laden tail in a vigorous slap that leaves the victim bristling painfully with the wrong end of the quills. When the quills make contact, they easily pull away from the porcupine and imbed in the victim. The reaction of the victim’s muscles works the quills in further.

Comical as the porcupine may seem, its quills can be deadly. A predator with a mouth, tongue, paw or muzzle full of quills may be unable to hunt or eat, and thus starve to death.

You might think giving birth is an ordeal for the mother porcupine (heaven forbid a breech birth!), but the quills of newborn porcupines are soft, quickly hardening after delivery. If stuck with someone else’s quills—during mating or a conflict between males—porcupines are adept at removing them using teeth and paws.

Quills have other uses besides defense. Porcupines spend a lot of time in trees, and their quills help cushion their occasional falls. Unlike some rodents, porcupines don’t hibernate and the air-filled quills insulate them from winter cold. They also act like a raft, making the animal buoyant when it swims to feed on aquatic plants or to escape an enemy.

When it comes to animal defenses, skunks think outside the box. No old-hat tooth-and-claw defense for these guys.

For protection, skunks use the nose . . . of their opponents, that is. Since many of the creatures that might threaten a skunk have strong senses of smell, the skunk turns its enemies’ strengths against it. Very Zen.

Though recently re-classified into their own family—Mephitidae—skunks have long been grouped with the musky Mustelid family, which includes weasels, ferrets, martens, badgers, otters and mink. Skunks have a pair of musk glands located at the base of the tail on either side of the anus. In other animals, the musk is used for  scent-marking and courtship. Only the skunks have turned musk into olfactory muscle.

Skunk musk, which chemists call butylmercapton, is in the same family of sulphuric chemicals as the compound added to odorless natural gas to make it detectable. It has been described as “a mixture of strong ammonia, essence of garlic, burning sulphur, a volume of sewer gas, a sulphuric acid spray, and a dash of perfume.” The oily musk has a smell so overpowering it can make enemies sneeze, cough, choke, gag and vomit. The caustic vapor burns eyes and nasal membranes and can temporarily blind the victim. Imagine the effect of this noxious blast on the sensitive nose of an animal like a coyote, whose sense of smell is a million times more acute than a human’s.

Eau de skunk is not a passive secretion. When a skunk feels threatened, it goes on alert. The openings of the musk glands pop out. Strong muscles constrict, squirting the oily, yellowish musk in either a thick stream or a fine spray. Like artillery gunners, skunks can fire their ammo at will, sending as many as eight bursts as far as 12 feet before the musk runs out.

Despite this creative and powerful weapon, skunks do not go looking for trouble. They use their scent for self defense. Even then, the skunk usually warns before it fires, sometimes stamping its feet, then pointing its tail skyward and erecting the fluffy tail hairs as a giant signal plume—Warning! Weapon about to discharge! While other animals try to camouflage themselves, the skunk advertises its identity with its bold coloration. Most predators need only one lesson to learn to avoid the skunk at first sight of black-and-white.

Skunk life, though, is not hazard-free. Great horned owls, which have little sense of smell, are unimpressed by the skunk’s stinky defenses. Owl nests sometimes exude a distinctive odor from the skunk meal brought to the owlets.

The skunk’s nocturnal habits, and its behavior when threatened, make it a frequent victim of vehicles. If a skunk should perceive a car bearing down on it, it is more likely to turn and raise its tail than to run. Unfortunately, cars don’t have a sense of smell.

Next: Separated at Birth?

(The information contained in this issue of Colorado's Wildlife Company was accurate at the time of original publication. Situations and circumstances described, staff positions, contact information, and dates of some events may have changed in the interim. Present knowledge and understanding of biological and behavioral facts and information may also be different, now, than presented here.)