Investigating the evolutionary history of the Old World Porcupines using DNA from specimens from the Late Pleistocene of China.
[sciencythoughts.blogspot.com]
Hystricidae (the Old World porcupines), which includes three distinguishable genera (Hystrix, Atherurus, Trichys), is one of the four families contained in the infraorder Phiomorpha. Phylogenetic evidence led to the hypothesis that the genera Trichys and Atherurus originated in the Palaeocene from an unknown Hystricognath ancestor in Asia. However, the earliest Porcupine fossils were recorded only in the Miocene in Europe. The extant Hystricidae species are distributed in Asia, Africa and Europe (only in Italy). Based on their habitat environment, Porcupines are generally adapted to tropical and subtropical climate.