Old World porcupine

Old World porcupines
Temporal range: Miocene – recent
Indian crested porcupine
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Parvorder: Phiomorpha
Family: Hystricidae
Fischer de Waldheim, 1817
Type genus
Hystrix
Linnaeus, 1758
Genera
Relief of a porcupine in an Egyptian desert, detail of a wall fragment from the grave of Pehenuikai at Saqqara, Egypt, Old Kingdom, 5th Dynasty, c. 2500 BCE. Neues Museum, Berlin

The Old World porcupines, or Hystricidae, are large terrestrial rodents, distinguished by the spiny covering from which they take their name. They range over the south of Europe and the Levant,[1] most of Africa, India, and Southeast Asia as far east as Flores. Although both the Old World and New World porcupine families belong to the infraorder Hystricognathi of the vast order Rodentia, they are quite different and are not particularly closely related.

  1. ^ "Topical Bible: Porcupine". biblehub.com. Retrieved 28 January 2019.