hystrix

Hystrix is a term used for two distinct concepts in biology and computer software. In biology, Hystrix is the genus of Old World porcupines in the family Hystricidae, and the name itself comes from the Greek hystrix, meaning porcupine.

Hystrix comprises several species native to Africa and Asia. Notable species include the Cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis), the crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata), and the Indian crested porcupine (Hystrix indica). These porcupines are large, terrestrial rodents with strong limbs and a coat of protective quills. They are primarily nocturnal and solitary, feeding on grasses, roots, fruits, bark, and occasionally crops. They often inhabit savannas, woodlands, and scrublands, where they dig burrows or use natural shelters. Defense relies on quills, which can be erected when threatened. Reproduction typically yields one or two young after a gestation period of roughly 110 days; females may breed more than once a year in favorable conditions. Conservation status varies by species and region; some populations are stable, while others face habitat loss, hunting, or conflict with humans.

Hystrix also refers to a software library developed by Netflix for latency and fault tolerance in distributed systems. Hystrix implements patterns such as circuit breakers, bulkheads, timeouts, and fallbacks to isolate failures and maintain system responsiveness in microservice architectures. It provides monitoring through a metrics stream and integrates with common Java-based service stacks. As development of Hystrix has slowed, newer projects commonly adopt alternatives such as resilience4j or other resilience libraries.