Wild boar

"Boar" redirects here. For other uses, see Boar (disambiguation) and Wild boar (disambiguation).
For pigs descended from escaped, domesticated animals, see Feral pig.

Wild boar
Temporal range: Early Pleistocene–Holocene
Male Central European boar (S. s. scrofa)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Suidae
Genus: Sus
Species:
S. scrofa
Binomial name
Sus scrofa
Reconstructed native range of wild boar (green) and introduced populations (blue) except in the Caribbean, New Zealand, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere in Bermuda, Northern Canada and Alaska.[1]
Synonyms
List
Boar growls

The wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as the wild swine,[4] common wild pig,[5] Eurasian wild pig,[6] or simply wild pig,[7] is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is now one of the widest-ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widespread suiform.[5] It has been assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List due to its wide range, high numbers, and adaptability to a diversity of habitats.[1] It has become an invasive species in part of its introduced range. Wild boars probably originated in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene[8] and outcompeted other suid species as they spread throughout the Old World.[9]

As of 2005, up to 16 subspecies are recognized, which are divided into four regional groupings based on skull height and lacrimal bone length.[2] The species lives in matriarchal societies consisting of interrelated females and their young (both male and female). Fully grown males are usually solitary outside the breeding season.[10] The wolf is the wild boar's main predator in most of its natural range except in the Far East and the Lesser Sunda Islands, where it is replaced by the tiger and Komodo dragon respectively.[11][12] The wild boar has a long history of association with humans, having been the ancestor of most domestic pig breeds and a big-game animal for millennia. Boars have also re-hybridized in recent decades with feral pigs; these boar–pig hybrids have become a serious pest wild animal in the Americas and Australia.

  1. ^ a b c Keuling, O.; Leus, K. (2019). "Sus scrofa". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2019: e.T41775A44141833. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-3.RLTS.T41775A44141833.en. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Grubb, P. (2005). "Species Sus scrofa". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 637–722. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  3. ^ Gray, J.E. (1827). "The Sanglier, or Wild Hog (Sus crofa) Buff. V. xiv. and xvii". In Cuvier, G.; Griffith, E.; Smith, C.H.; Pidgeon, E.; Gray, J.E.; Latreille, P.A.; Gray, G.R. (eds.). The Animal Kingdom Arranged in Conformity with Its Organization: Synopsis of the species of the class Mammalia, as arranged ... by Cuvier and other naturalists [by J. E. Gray; the Ruminantia, by C. H. Smith] 1827. Vol. 3. Mammalia. G. B. Whittaker. pp. 287–288.
  4. ^ Heptner, V. G.; Nasimovich, A. A.; Bannikov, A. G.; Hoffman, R. S. (1988). Mlekopitajuščie Sovetskogo Soiuza. Moskva: Vysšaia Škola [Mammals of the Soviet Union]. Vol. I. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and National Science Foundation. pp. 19–82.
  5. ^ a b Oliver, W. L. R.; et al. (1993). "The Common Wild Pig (Sus scrofa)". In Oliver, W. L. R. (ed.). Pigs, Peccaries, and Hippos – 1993 Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN SSC Pigs and Peccaries Specialist Group. pp. 112–121. ISBN 2-8317-0141-4.
  6. ^ "Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758". mammaldiversity.org. Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  7. ^ "Boar – mammal". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference chen2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference kurten1968 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference marsan75 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Baskin, L.; Danell, K. (2003). Ecology of Ungulates: A Handbook of Species in North, Central, and South America, Eastern Europe and Northern and Central Asia. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 15–38. ISBN 3-540-43804-1.
  12. ^ Affenberg, W. (1981). The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor. University Press of Florida. p. 248. ISBN 0-8130-0621-X.