Gentleman hedgehogs will be out this month trying to impress the lady hedgehogs.  It's mating time for hedgehogs, so there'll be lots of snuffling noises coming from beneath the shrubbery.

Mating only takes a couple of minutes, but the seduction process can take a lot longer because lady hedgehogs sometimes play hard to get.

So how does a gentleman hedgehog win the affections of a lady hedgehog?  Well, you might expect the man hedgehog to get to know her first.  Maybe ask her out on a date.  Talk to her about things they have in common.  Then possibly move on to a little hand holding, and perhaps a kiss or two.

But no!

In fact the gentleman hedgehog performs a nifty mating dance.  Like a spiky sex god he circles the lady hedgehog, strutting his stuff while making lots of pig-like snorting noises.  It should be enough to get any girl excited, but the ladies are not easily impressed, and sometimes the male has to go on dancing and snorting for hours.

Now you're probably wondering how hedgehogs actually mate?  As the old joke goes, very carefully.  Mating has to be a mutually agreed thing between the male and female.  In fact, according to "The Kama Sutra for Hedgehogs" (one of the shortest books in the world) there's really only one way to do it.  With the lights off (possibly a bit Barry White playing in the background) the female lays her prickly spines in a flattened position and then the male moves in.  There's no room for error.  Any deviation from the original 'hoggy position' could lead to a very serious injury.

Related Pages

• UK Safari Hedgehog Fact File
• Photo of two hedgehogs self-anointing
• Hibernating Hedgehogs
• UK Safari Mammal Section
• UK Safari News