The streaked tenrec carries a distinct group of quills in the middle of its back, structurally different from its defensive spines. Muscles vibrate these against each other, producing a faint, high-frequency sound. The mechanism is stridulation, familiar from crickets and beetles, and the streaked tenrec appears to be the only mammal that uses it.
The signal is used in contact between group members, particularly between a mother and her young in dense leaf litter where sight lines are short. Streaked tenrecs are among the more social tenrecs, foraging in family parties, and the sound gives a way to stay together without carrying far enough to advertise the group widely.
The animal's defensive quills work separately. They are barbed and detachable, and a tenrec will drive them into a threatening face with a jerk of the head. Madagascar's tenrec radiation is often described as filling the roles of shrews, hedgehogs and moles elsewhere; how much of that resemblance is genuine ecological convergence rather than a convenient description has not been settled quantitatively.