SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog may have made the animal famous, but here are some things you won’t find in the video games. Starting off, did you know that similar to opossums, mice and moles, hedgehogs have some natural immunity against snake venom due to the protein erinacin in the animal’s muscular system? Continue reading for more.
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Hedgehogs occasionally perform a ritual called anointing. When the animal encounters a new scent, it will lick and bite the source, then form a scented froth in its mouth and paste it on its spines with its tongue. The specific purpose of this ritual is unknown, but some experts believe anointing camouflages the hedgehog with the new scent of the area and provides a possible poison or source of infection to predators poked by their spines. Anointing is sometimes also called anting because of a similar behavior in birds.
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