Lions

The largest predators of porcupines in the Old World, such as Africa, are the various giant wild cats, notably lions, who are cunning enough to deliberately turn the porcupines over and attack them in this manner. Surprisingly, studies indicate that porcupines can kill lions or at the very least critically hurt them. A porcupine quill may pierce an aggressor quite deeply, in one instance, a lion was discovered with a quill that had pierced more than six inches into its nose and nearly reached its brain. Due to this wound, the lion found it difficult to continue its hunt and was unable to remove the quill, as a result, it turned to attack people, something that lions typically wouldn't do. A researcher asserted that a lion's attack on a human in the circumstance was motivated only by the victim's vulnerability and the porcupine's quill.

Additionally, during severe droughts and in desert regions where huge prey are less common, lions tend to hunt porcupines more frequently. Porcupines often make up less than four percent of the big cats' diets in wetter regions compared to an average of 28 percent in low-rainfall areas, the study found. Because lions enjoy eating porcupines so much, mountain lions in North America regularly target them. Mountain lion assaults are thought to have played a role in the nearly complete eradication of porcupine populations in states like Nevada, where a 1997 survey indicated that the total number of porcupines dropped from 80 to 5 in just three years.