French pottery and French onions, still life oil painting by Tessa Bennett.

French pottery  and French onions, painting by Tessa Bennett.

This is a photograph of a European hedgehog. There are 17 species of hedgehog, a spiny mammal of the the sub Erinaceinae. Hedgehogs share ancestry with shrews and have changed little for 15 million years!  They are nocturnal and insectivorous mammals . The name came into use in about 1450 and was derived from middle English (heygehog) because it frequented hedgerows and has a pig- like snout.  They are wonderful creatures.