The white-bellied hedgehog (Erinaceus concolor) actually does not need an additional description, as we all know it. It is a resident of lowland areas, which is most at home in the realm of cultural landscape, where groves, living hedges, fields and meadows intertwine. It does not fear humans either. At dusk it can be found in many places in urban parks or in a home garden, where it searches for earthworms, beetles and other insects as well as centipedes, spiders, slugs and other soil invertebrates, with which it feeds. By day it hides in its nest, which it builds from moss, dry grasses and leaves under a pile of brambles.
The hedgehog is born without spines, which soon grow. On the eleventh day after birth it can curl into a ball and thus in danger hide its vulnerable belly side. Nevertheless, about two-thirds of young hedgehogs do not survive their first year of life, as they are preyed upon by various beasts and owls. Unfortunately many hedgehogs also end up under car wheels. In the wild hedgehogs live about seven years, those in captivity are somewhat longer-lived, as they face fewer dangers.
The hedgehog overwinters in a non-active state – hibernation. During winter sleep in the nest its body temperature drops from 34 ºC to only 4 ºC, and its heart rate from 190 to merely 20 beats per minute.
The white-bellied hedgehog is protected in Slovenia by the Regulation on protected free-living animal species, and on the Red List of endangered mammals of Slovenia it is defined as a species of least concern.
