The mating system of E. dorsatum is considered female defense polygyny. Males defend a pre-estrous female from 1 to 4 days prior to copulation. Porcupines breed only once a year. Female porcupines advertise their 8 to 12 hour estrous period well ahead of time through vaginal secretions, urine marking, and high pitched vocalizations. In doing this, females attract many males who compete with each other to determine dominance. A dominant male breeds with a number of different females, but only when the females are willing. This ensures that the "best" male fathers a female's offspring.
Females maintain a territory, and defend it against other females; however male territories typically overlap those of several females. The territories of dominant males rarely overlap. Females all maintain similar sized territories, but male territory size varies with age and dominance status. Juvenile males settle as permanent residents in their natal area. They have smaller territories than do adults, but expand their territory size as they mature. Females disperse from their natal area before reaching maturity.
Male/female pairs sometimes share winter dens, although this den sharing is not exclusive to mated pairs. Den sharing is not necessarily considered part of the mating system of porcupines.
Mating System: polygynous
Females advertise their readiness to mate by vaginal secretions, urine marking, and high pitched vocalizations, well before the time of ovulation. This means that several males converging on an advertising female will have to compete for, and then defend, the female. Mating will only happen after a female has chosen a male and is receptive to him.
Males compete with each other using loud vocalizations, violent biting, and each uses his quills as weapons. Although the competition happens in trees, mating exclusively happens on the ground. The pair will mate for several hours until a vaginal plug is formed, which then stops the copulation, and prevents further copulation with other males. This plug is formed by enzymatic action in the semen.
Male porcupines display a strange courtship ritual, which involves dousing of the female with his urine. The urine showers are continued until the female is receptive to both the shower and the male. According to Roze (1989), "Everything suggests the urine is fired by ejaculation, not released by normal bladder pressure. Porcupines with everyday full bladders don't squirt their urine, don't have erections, and don't aim at females."
Breeding occurs in October and November. Gestation in this species is 210 days, after which a female gives birth to a single offspring. Newborns weigh between 400 and 530 g. Young are nursed for about 127 days. They become independent of their mothers at approximately 5 months of age, but are not sexual mature until the age of 25 months for females, and 29 months for males.
Breeding interval: North American porcupines breed only once a year.
Breeding season: Mating occurs in the months of October and November.
Range number of offspring: 1 to 2.
Average number of offspring: 1.
Range gestation period: 205 to 217 days.
Average gestation period: 210.25 days.
Range weaning age: 127 (low) days.
Range time to independence: 5 (low) months.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 25 (low) months.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 29 (low) months.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); induced ovulation ; fertilization ; viviparous
Average birth mass: 500 g.
Average number of offspring: 1.
Parental care is provided by the mother. Mainy, a mother provides her baby with food. For the first six weeks of a porcupine's life, its mother is always close by. They meet only at night. During the day the baby is hidden on the ground, while the mother sleeps in the trees. After six weeks, the baby porcupine follows the mother to feeding trees and waits for her at the bottom. Over the next couple months, resting positions and foraging distances show increasing separation between the young porcupine and its mother. The mother continues to travel to the position of the baby every night, following landmarks and not scent trails back to the infant. By mid-October the baby completely loses contact with the mother and is left to survive its first winter alone. The father spends no energy in the rearing of or caring for the offspring. Males have little to no contact with their offspring.
Parental Investment: no parental involvement; precocial ; female parental care ; pre-fertilization (Protecting: Male, Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female)