By Sawyer Hill (Westminster College)
The Perpetually Plodding Porcupine
This large rodent of the Erethizontidae Family,
plods through forest, shrublands, and tundra
so purposefully.
The “quill pig” also known as Erethizon dorsatum
is covered in thousands of quills and then some.
The quills of these slow moving, near-sighted
herbivores can be quite lethal to
marauding carnivores.
Many a porcupine will spend time in a tree,
and occasionally slide down a field of scree.
These reserved rodents
rove ever onward.