Their back feet have four toes and their front feet have five toes! These cute hedgehogs are well known for being great house pets but they are banned for domestication in California and Hawaii.
They have short limbs and a round body that is low to the ground with a very short tail. Females are slightly bigger than the males. Typical length is 7-9 inches when relaxed, but when startled or defensive, they will roll into a ball about the size of a large grapefruit. Typical facial color is light pink. Hedgehogs have prickly hair called spines that are brown or gray with cream tips. Face and underside are covered with soft, white fur.
They live in forests and deserts throughout southern Africa, from Senegal through the Sudan to Zambia, southern Somalia and Tanzania.
They eat worms, snails, arthropods, frogs, lizards, snakes, eggs, nesting birds, small mammals and carrion. But they can also eat fruit, seeds, peanuts, fungi and roots. They eat food in the amount of about 1/3 of body weight each night.
They are nocturnal and constantly move around. In fact, they can cover several miles in one night. Hedgehogs keep a distance from each other. There are a number of unique African pygmy hedgehog behaviors including self-anointing. When an animal discovers a unique taste or scent, it creates frothy saliva which it spreads across its body in a series of remarkable contortions. Another behavior is the animal's ability to shut down its body functions (as in winter hibernation) to help it survive when the temperature is below 75-85 degrees F. The young are born with spines already present, but the spines are covered with a membrane. Within a few hours of birth this membrane dries up and the spines immediately start growing.
With their prickly hair, they fend off predators well. These animals are domesticated in the Western world as pets so there isn’t a need for conservation.
Two to three years in the wild and a few more in captivity.