Mammals
Lowland Streaked Tenrec
Hemicentetes semispinosus · also called lowland streaked tenrec
The lowland streaked tenrec is a spiny black-and-yellow Madagascan oddity that talks by rubbing quills on its back together like a cricket — the only mammal known to have a dedicated organ for it. It may also click its tongue to navigate the dark rainforest floor like a tiny bat.
Overview
Lowland streaked tenrecs live in humid rainforest of eastern Madagascar, including forest edges and nearby farmland. About 12–19 cm, they mix soft fur with barbed black-and-yellow spines, rooting earthworms out of damp soil with a long snout.
Talking with quills
A special patch of back quills vibrates to produce high-pitched stridulation sounds, keeping family groups in contact in dense undergrowth — a trick otherwise seen only in insects.
Clicks in the dark
It also makes faint tongue clicks that may serve as a simple form of echolocation, rare among mammals outside bats and whales.
Status
The lowland streaked tenrec is Least Concern, widespread and common across eastern Madagascar, tolerant of some disturbed land.
Lowland Streaked Tenrec: common questions
How does the lowland streaked tenrec make sound with its quills?
It has a specialised patch of modified quills on the middle of its back, distinct from its defensive spines, that it can vibrate rapidly against one another to generate a high-frequency sound, a process known as stridulation. This is the same basic mechanism a cricket uses to chirp by rubbing its wings together, and while stridulation is widespread among insects, the lowland streaked tenrec is the only mammal known to have evolved a dedicated stridulating organ of this kind. The sounds it produces are thought to help family group members stay in contact with one another while foraging through dense, dark undergrowth where visual signals would be useless.
Can the lowland streaked tenrec really echolocate?
There is genuine scientific evidence that it produces faint clicking sounds using its tongue, and some researchers believe it uses the echoes of these clicks for a rudimentary form of echolocation, similar in principle to but far less sophisticated than the echolocation used by bats and toothed whales. If confirmed, this would make it one of a very small number of mammals outside bats and cetaceans to use sound this way, and it would fit the animal's lifestyle of moving through cluttered rainforest undergrowth in low light, where being able to sense nearby obstacles and possibly prey by sound would be a clear advantage.
How does the lowland streaked tenrec defend itself?
Its primary defence is a set of stiff, sharply barbed spines concentrated on its neck and back, which it deploys by lowering its head, bristling the spines outward, and bucking or thrusting its body toward an attacking predator. The barbs on these spines mean they can detach and become embedded in the skin, paws, or mouth of a predator that presses an attack, causing pain and making the tenrec an unpleasant target, a defence strategy broadly similar to that of hedgehogs and porcupines despite tenrecs not being closely related to either group.
Is the lowland streaked tenrec related to hedgehogs?
Despite a strong superficial resemblance, with both animals being small, spiny insectivores, tenrecs are not closely related to hedgehogs at all. Tenrecs belong to an ancient group of mammals called Afrotheria, which also includes elephants, aardvarks, and manatees, and their spiny, hedgehog-like appearance is a result of convergent evolution, where unrelated animals independently develop similar features because they face similar ecological pressures, in this case the need for effective defence as a small, slow-moving, ground-dwelling insect-eater. Madagascar's tenrecs have diversified into a remarkable range of forms filling roles occupied elsewhere by hedgehogs, shrews, moles, and otters.