Skip to main content
Browse the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWYZ
Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

Warning

This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

MAMMALS, INTRODUCED

Contents

Related Images


Hedgehogs

The hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) is the only representative of the order of Insectivora in New Zealand. It was liberated by the acclimatisation societies in Dunedin and Christchurch in 1885 to control garden pests. Many subsequent official and unofficial liberations were made and the natural spread of this animal has led to its becoming common throughout both main islands, except in the high country and the large forests. R. E. Brockie has shown recently that the hedgehog is now more numerous in New Zealand than in Britain. According to Brockie, hedgehogs in New Zealand feed mainly on invertebrates, such as slugs, snails, millipedes, and caterpillars; frogs, too, are sometimes eaten. More information is needed to substantiate the claims of acclimatisation societies (who for many years paid bounties for hedgehog snouts) that hedgehogs destroy appreciable numbers of the eggs or young of ground-nesting game. The hedgehog can be considered a friend of the gardener. But these animals, with the Norway rat, are carriers of the diseases Leptospira pomona (which affects young calves in some dairy herds) and a ringworm affecting humans.