200 Years. 200 Stories. Story
146: “Meet Sadie
”
Meet Sadie
She’s tiny enough to fit into the palms of your hands, but Sadie is the big star of today’s Three Weeks Behind the Scenes spectacular. Sadie, our African pygmy hedgehog (a hybrid of Atelerix albiventris and Atelerix algirus) came to the Academy’s Live Animal Center when she was only three months old. African pygmy hedgehogs, a cross of the four-toed hedgehog (found in Central and Eastern Africa) and the North African hedgehog (endemic to the Mediterranean region and northern Africa), are found only in captivity and are often bred for educational purposes. The average adult hedgehog has about 5,000–7,000 spines, which protect it from predators and cushion it in a fall.
You can see some of the animals in the Academy’s Live Animal Center any day of the week. Visit us today!
Photography: Cora Rivera.