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b"This week thanks to Romy, who suggested the topic of hedgehogs! And researching hedgehogs led me to their only close relation, the moonrat.\\n\\nHedgehogs are adorable:\\n\\n\\n\\nPictures of listener QuillviaPlath's adorable friend Delilah, an African pygmy hedgehog. Delilah has crossed the Rainbow Bridge since these pictures were taken, but QuillviaPlath has a rescue hedgehog named Lily now and will soon be adopting another rescue named Toodles too!\\n\\n\\n\\nMoonrats are a little less adorable but still cute:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\n\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\n\\nThis week we\\u2019re going to learn about a humble little animal that\\u2019s well-known in much of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but totally unknown in the Americas except as a pet. It\\u2019s the hedgehog, a suggestion from Romy. Thank you, Romy! We\\u2019ll also learn about the hedgehog\\u2019s closest relation, the moonrat.\\n\\nThere did actually used to be a hedgehog native to North America, but it went extinct some 50 million years ago. The hedgehogs alive today pretty much haven\\u2019t changed in about 15 million years. The North American hedgehog is called Silvacola and only grew a few inches long, or maybe 7 cm. It lived in what is now British Columbia, Canada. We don\\u2019t know if it had quills, but the hedgehogs living in Europe at the same time as Silvacola lived had already evolved quills, so maybe it did.\\n\\nI have seen exactly one hedgehog in my life, a pet named Button. I got to pet her and everything. She was very sleepy, though, because it was daytime and hedgehogs are nocturnal. But I can verify that hedgehogs do have spines on the back and sides, although if you pet the hedgehog properly you won\\u2019t get your fingers poked by the spines. I can also verify that hedgehogs are adorable.\\n\\nBut other than adorable and prickly, what are hedgehogs? Are they related to porcupines? Are they related to hogs? Do they really live in hedges?\\n\\nThe answers are no, no, and yes. Thanks for listening. You can find Strange Animals\\u2014ha ha, just kidding!\\n\\nThere are a number of hedgehog species in five separate genera. A few species have been domesticated, although it\\u2019s illegal in many places to keep a wild hedgehog as a pet. In some places it\\u2019s illegal to keep a hedgehog as a pet at all, since hedgehogs can become invasive pests if released into the wild in areas where they shouldn\\u2019t be. This has happened in New Zealand and a few other places, where introduced hedgehogs have no natural predators and have become so numerous they\\u2019ve caused damage to the local ecosystems. The hedgehog is an omnivore, and will eat bird eggs, insects, frogs and toads, snails, plants, and pretty much anything else. It\\u2019s especially damaging to shore birds that nest on the ground. But in its natural habitat, the hedgehog plays an important role as both a predator of small animals, including garden pests, and as prey to larger animals like foxes, badgers, and owls.\\n\\nThe hedgehog will also eat small snakes, and actually has some natural immunity to certain snake venoms. Of course, if a snake injects enough venom it will overwhelm the hedgehog\\u2019s protections and make it sick or kill it anyway. It also has resistance to toxins and will eat toxic toads that would kill other animals. But the hedgehog\\u2019s best protection is its spines, more properly called quills. If a hedgehog feels threatened, it will roll itself into a tight ball with its quills sticking out.\\n\\nThe quills are hairs that are hollow and stiffened with keratin. Good old keratin. You know, keratin is the same tough material that fur and fingernails and rhinoceros horns and hooves and baleen are made of. European hedgehogs are famous for the number of fleas they carry, a specific species of flea called the hedgehog flea. Who named that? They were a genius. Hedgehog fleas won\\u2019t infest dogs or cats. They only like hedgehogs.\\n\\nThe hedgehog is a good digger and sometimes digs burrows to sleep in during the day."