Cape porcupines are the largest rodents in Africa and also the world’s largest porcupines. Cape porcupines seem to be the world’s fourth heaviest living rodents, after the capybara and the Eurasian and North American beavers.They are similar in appearance to, and only slightly larger than, their close relatives, the crested porcupines, and can most easily be distinguished from them by the presence of a band of short white spines along the midline of the rump.