FT263


The myth


Because the number one killer of hedgehogs today is the motorcar, the animal is evolving out of its old habit of rolling up into a spiny ball in the face of danger. Natural selection is killing off the “roll up” gene, and favouring the “run like hell” gene.


The “truth”


No one seems to know where this superficially sensible-sounding, but completely unsupported, hypothesis began. The world’s number one expert on the European hedgehog, Pat Morris, writes of having first heard it in the mid-1970s, and says that it was given a boost in 1995, when it was used in a GCSE exam paper.