A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduction. There are no hedgehogs native to Australia and no living species native to the Americas. However, the extinct genus Amphechinus was once present in North America.
Erinaceidae is a family in the order Eulipotyphla, consisting of the hedgehogs and moonrats. Until recently, it was assigned to the order Erinaceomorpha, which has been subsumed with the paraphyletic Soricomorpha into Eulipotyphla. Eulipotyphla has been shown to be monophyletic; Soricomorpha is paraphyletic because Soricidae shared a more recent common ancestor with Erinaceidae than with other soricomorphs.
Wagner's gerbil is a gerbil that is native mainly to the Nile Delta, Israel, the Sinai, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. It also referred to as the rough-tailed dipodil or Wadi Hof gerbil. They are solo, burrowing mammals that are nocturnally active.
Brandt's hedgehog is a species of desert hedgehog native to parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. Its common name derives from its having first been described by Johann Friedrich von Brandt, a director of the Zoological Department at the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
The Indian hedgehog is a species of hedgehog native to India and Pakistan. It mainly lives in sandy desert areas but can be found in other environments.
The Indian long-eared hedgehog is a small species of mammal native to northern India and Pakistan. It is insectivorous and nocturnal.
The bare-bellied hedgehog, also known as the Madras hedgehog, is a species of hedgehog that is endemic to dry arid regions and scrubby jungles in southeastern India. As it was believed to be rare, it was formerly listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. It is now known to be locally common in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, resulting in its new listing as a species of Least Concern. Hedgehogs are protected species under schedule IV of Wildlife Protection Act (1972).
The desert hedgehog is a species of mammal in the family Erinaceidae.
The desert warthog is a species of even-toed ungulate in the pig family (Suidae), found in northern Kenya and Somalia, and possibly Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. This is the range of the extant subspecies, commonly known as the Somali warthog. Another subspecies, commonly known as the Cape warthog, became extinct around 1865, but formerly occurred in South Africa.
Phacochoerus is a genus in the family Suidae, commonly known as warthogs. They are pigs who live in open and semi-open habitats, even in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were formerly considered conspecific under the scientific name Phacochoerus aethiopicus, but today this is limited to the desert warthog, while the best-known and most widespread species, the common warthog, is Phacochoerus africanus.
Moniliformidae is a family of parasitic spiny-headed worms. It is the only family in the Moniliformida order and contains three genera: Australiformis containing a single species, Moniliformis containing eighteen species and Promoniliformis containing a single species. Genetic analysis have determined that the clade is monophyletic despite being distributed globally. These worms primarily parasitize mammals, including humans in the case of Moniliformis moniliformis, and occasionally birds by attaching themselves into the intestinal wall using their hook-covered proboscis. The intermediate hosts are mostly cockroaches. The distinguishing features of this order among archiacanthocephalans is the presence of a cylindrical proboscis with long rows of hooks with posteriorly directed roots and proboscis retractor muscles that pierce both the posterior and ventral end or just posterior end of the receptacle. Infestation with Monoliformida species can cause moniliformiasis, an intestinal condition characterized as causing lesions, intestinal distension, perforated ulcers, enteritis, gastritis, crypt hypertrophy, goblet cell hyperplasia, and blockages.
The Persian Gulf desert and semi-desert ecoregion covers the desert coastal plain of the northwest Persian Gulf, that is, on the northeast Arabian Peninsula, from Kuwait in the north to a small coastal sector in the United Arab Emirates to the southeast.
