Hystrix
Searched as Hystrix hodsoni subcristatus. The Paleobiology Database treats Hystrix as the accepted name.

Dori · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- porcupinePBDB
- Sits inside
- HystricidaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, frugivorePBDB, for Hystricidae
- Life habit
- semifossorialPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 645 thousand years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 774 ka and 129 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Hystrix on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
1 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Hystrix and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Hystrix and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
2,035 taxa- Bovidae70 sites
- Gazella56 sites
- Equus48 sites
- Panthera pardus44 sites
- Hipparion38 sites
- Taurotragus oryx37 sites
- Mammalia35 sites
- Suidae33 sites
- Felis32 sites
- Lepus32 sites
- Phacochoerus aethiopicus32 sites
- Alcelaphini31 sites
- Hippopotamus amphibius30 sites
- Lupulella mesomelas30 sites
- Rhinocerotidae30 sites
- Tragelaphus strepsiceros30 sites
- Canis29 sites
- Cervus29 sites
- Syncerus caffer28 sites
- Procavia capensis27 sites
- Alcelaphus buselaphus26 sites
- Crocuta crocuta26 sites
- Sus26 sites
- Aves25 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 222 sites for Hystrix, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2

Picture of Hystrix
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Dori
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHystricidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758