page_title: Indian crested porcupine
section_title: Distribution and habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Indian crested porcupine / Distribution and habitat
caption_attribution_description: Hystrix indica (Prague Zoo)
context_page_description: The Indian crested porcupine, or Indian porcupine, is a large species of hystricomorph rodent belonging to the Old World porcupine family, Hystricidae. It is native to southern Asia and the Middle East.
context_section_description: Indian crested porcupines are found throughout southwest and central Asia, including Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Nepal, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Yemen. Due to their flexible environmental tolerances, Indian crested porcupines occupy a broad range of habitats. They prefer rocky hillsides, but are also common in tropical and temperate shrublands, grasslands, forests, plantations, and gardens. Their range seems to be limited by seasonal densities of forage and the availability of suitable substrates for digging burrows. More specifically, the northern range of the Indian crested porcupine is limited by minimum summer night duration: they do not occur above latitudes where minimum night duration is less than 7 hours, presumably because of the amount of foraging time required to meet their dietary needs.
  In 2018, a porcupine was spotted at Wadi Wurayah in the United Arab Emirates.
caption: Indian crested porcupine on a rocky hillside
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