Abstract: In China the living porcupines are known to be distributed in Tibet and the area south to the Yangtze River, not beyond N 35°. The distribution of Quaternary fossil porcupines is known to be much wider than that of today, reaching Benxi in Northeastern China (north to N 41°) . However, our knowledge of the Chinese Neogene porcupines is limited to two species from south China: H. Zhengi from Pliocene of Sichuan and Guangxi, and Hystrix sp. from late Miocene of Lufeng of Yunnan. So far no fossil porcupines have ever been reported from Gansu Province. The discovery of the new porcupine from Linxia, Gansu, not only widened the distribution of the Neogene porcupines in China , but also shed new light on the evolutionary history of the fossil porcupines .