Wild pigs
| Wild boar Temporal range: Early –Holocene |
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| Male Central European boar (S. s. scrofa) |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Suidae |
| Genus: | Sus |
| Species: | S. scrofa |
| Binomial name | |
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Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758 |
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| Reconstructed range of wild boar (green) and introduced populations (blue): Not shown are smaller introduced populations in the Caribbean, New Zealand, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere. | |
| Synonyms | |
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Species synonymy
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The wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as the wild swine or Eurasian wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia, North Africa, and the Greater Sunda Islands. Human intervention has spread its range further, making the species one of the widest-ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widely spread suiform. Its wide range, high numbers, and adaptability mean that it is classed as least concern by the IUCN and it has become an invasive species in part of its introduced range. The animal probably originated in Southeast Asia during the , and outcompeted other suid species as it spread throughout the Old World.
As of 1990, up to 16 subspecies are recognised, which are divided into four regional groupings based on skull height and lacrimal bone length. 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. The grey wolf is the wild boar's main predator throughout most of its range except in the Far East and the Lesser Sunda Islands, where it is replaced by the tiger and Komodo dragon respectively. It has a long history of association with humans, having been the ancestor of most domestic pig breeds and a big-game animal for millennia.
As true wild boars became extinct in Britain before the development of modern English, the same terms are often used for both true wild boar and pigs, especially large or semiwild ones. The English 'boar' stems from the Old English bar, which is thought to be derived from the West Germanic *bairaz, of unknown origin. Boar is sometimes used specifically to refer to males, and may also be used to refer to male domesticated pigs, especially breeding males that have not been castrated.
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Wikipedia