Photo Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Zoo

Photo Courtesy of the Smithsonian National Zoo


The Smithsonian National Zoo introduced us to a prickly little friend to obsess over this morning. Meet Charlotte, the prehensile-tailed porcupine.

When zookeepers noticed that the two-month-old porcupette (yes, that’s a real word) wasn’t nursing properly and losing weight, nutritionists and veterinarians swooped in to help, said Jen Zoon, the zoo’s spokesperson. They found that “she wasn’t latching properly to her mother, Bess,” Zoon says. So “they developed a milk formula for Charlotte and administered it to her.”

To manage her dietary and medical needs, the zoo said on Flickr that “vets surgically inserted an esophagostomy tube and fed her formula every three hours, around the clock, for five days. Her feeding tube was removed on November 11 because she was consistently eating all of her diet by mouth.”

As of today, Charlotte is a little more than 2 pounds and healthy.

Now zoo visitors can see her out on exhibit every day around 11:30 a.m. for 15 to 20 minutes. She’s one of three prehensile-tailed porcupines at the zoo—including her parents.

Despite being younger than baby panda Bei Bei, Charlotte makes her debut more than a month before he will on January 16.

Filed Under: national zoo, porcupine, smithsonian national zoo,