They range over the south of Europe and the Levant,[1] most of Africa, India, and Southeast Asia as far east as Flores.

Old World porcupines are stout, heavily built animals, with blunt, rounded heads, fleshy, mobile snouts, and coats of thick cylindrical or flattened spines, which form the whole covering of their bodies, and are not intermingled with ordinary hairs.

Females typically give birth only once a year, in a grass-lined underground chamber within a burrow system.

The young remain with the colony until they reach sexual maturity at around two years of age, and share the burrow system with their parents and siblings from other litters.

Of the three genera, Hystrix is characterized by an inflated skull, in which the nasal cavity is often considerably larger than the brain case, and a short tail, tipped with numerous slender-stalked open quills, which make a rattling noise whenever the animal moves.

The African brush-tailed porcupine (A. africanus) will simultaneously raise sharp quills, 40 cm (16 inches) in length, on its back and sides.

The genus Atherurus includes the brush-tailed porcupines which are much smaller animals, with long tails tipped with bundles of flattened spines.