Hedgehog Awareness Week

Hedgehog Awareness Week, organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, takes place from 30th April to 6th May and a team at the Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre (nmRC) have decided to raise awareness of this important week by studying hedgehog spines. The spines were kindly donated by Deborah Korn from local hedgehog rescue charity Hedgepigs (www.hedgepigs.org) and they were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) by Lorelei Robertson (Electron Microscope Technician) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) by Dr Hannah Constantin (XPS Technician and founder of UoN Hedgehog Friendly Campus Group)  to understand their microstructure and composition respectively. The results were collated together to create some educational resources such as the posters shown here.