Forget a dinky doggy kept in your designer handbag à la Paris Hilton. If you really want to catch some admiring attention, what you need is an ultra teensy weensy hedgehog.
Or, to be more specific, a member of the class Mammalia, order Insectivore, family Tenrecidae, more commonly known as the Madagascan Hedgehog Tenrec.
In the past year these rinky dinky little chaps have become more sought after in the moneyed suburbs of Durban, Joburg and Cape Town than Jimmy Choo shoes and Breitling watches.
There’s only so much mileage you can get out of your latest piece of bling. A diminutive, and very costly, pet is going to make you the darling of the social circuit as you discuss its habits and hijinks while bouncing the little chap cautiously in your kid glove-clad hands.
The Madagascan Tenrec is easily mistaken for the African pygmy hedgehog, but the cognoscenti will never confuse the two. They are not even distant relatives, and inhabit entirely different geographical areas in the wild. Like hedgehogs, Tenrecs, of which there are several species, have spines. They are also capable of rolling themselves into a ball. They are slightly smaller on average than hedgehogs, weighing in at around 200g.
Jacques Villiers of Gauteng is a self-taught expert on African pygmy hedgehogs and Tenrecs. He asked to be given a pseudonym because his breeding pair of Tenrecs has not yet emerged from hibernation, and he hasn’t time to answer dozens of calls each day from people desperate to complete their families with one of his Beatrix Potter babies.
“When I advertised choglets (babies) last year at R3 750 there was an absolute stampede. People were throwing silly money at me, R5 000 and R6 000, to beat the queue.”
Next breeding season Villiers plans to keep matters far more low-key, and source the right homes for the pets by word of mouth.
“The Tenrec is a very low-maintenance pet,” he said. “When they hibernate in the cooler months they don’t eat anything, although you must leave fresh water nearby for when they wake. When they come out of hibernation it’s all fun and games. The only thing the male wants to do is bonk and the female is only interested in eating. My wife and I have given them their own room on the far side of the house so we don’t get kept awake by their nocturnal hijinks.”
Villiers said the African pygmy hedgehog was actually a mongrel mix created by breeders who saw the chance to make big bucks.
“Several years ago, researchers gathered various species of hedgehog from around Africa for study purposes. When the experiment ended, some of the animals were smuggled out and interbred to create a smaller variant.
“Luckily the Tenrec breed won’t be diluted, though, because they won’t mate with the pygmy hedgehog. It would be like trying to breed a mouse with a hamster. The breeds are so different that scientists are actually proposing they be reclassified.”
Villiers theorises that Tenrecs were smuggled out of Madagascar and the Comoros illegally. Because they breed more slowly than pygmy hedgehogs, they have become the more prized of the two species, and are only kept by a handful of specialist breeders worldwide.
The little pincushions have adapted well to captivity, and because they do not click or hiss like traditional hedgehogs, are more amenable pets.
Once a breeding pair emerges from hibernation, the male wastes no time getting down to business. While the female will often resist, he is not averse to grabbing her shoulder spines to prevent her escaping. Once reconciled to her fate, she makes an excellent mother of between two and four babies.
With careful nurture, the Tenrec can live as long as 10 years.
Creatures and Critters in Botha’s Hill in KwaZulu-Natal now and then stocks the African pygmy hedgehog. Tracking down your Tenrec will involve internet research. - Sunday Tribune