115
Chapter 11: Forest hog Hylochoerus meinertzhageni (Thomas 1904)Figure 11.1 Forest hog distribution (source: IUCN 2016, Red List of Threatened Species). (A simplified black and white version of this figure will appear in some formats. For
the colour version, please refer to the plate section.)
Taxonomy
The forest hog is the last discovered wild pig (in 1904) and one
of the last large mammals of Africa to be classified taxonomi-
cally. It was originally named forest pig and later qualified as
‘giant’ forest hog due to the large size of the eastern subspecies
(Hylochoerus meinertzhageni meinertzhageni), the only one
which truly deserves this epithet. For many years, the species
was divided into seven subspecies, but after a review for IUCN/
SSC by Grubb (1993), only three were retained. In their book
Ungulate Taxonomy, Groves and Grubb (2011) reviewed this
classification and suggest that a species-level status be assigned
to these three subspecies, which would increase the number of
recognized wild pig species in Africa up to eight.
In the present book, Gongora et al. (Chapter 1) follow the
same classification and confirm the recommendation that the
three former subspecies be given a status of species (see Chapter
1 for justification). We recognize, however, that further genetic
and morphometric studies are required in order to fully under-
stand the taxonomy of the forest hog, particularly because
the taxonomic status of the Ethiopian race is still indefinite.
Therefore, and pending further investigation on Hylochoerus
taxonomy, we will still refer in this chapter to the three subspe-
cies, acknowledging that they might deserve a status of species.
Subspecies and Distribution
Hylochoerus m. ivoriensis is found in forested countries in west
Africa with a discontinuous distribution in Guinea, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. In central Africa, H. m.
rimator is present in south-eastern Nigeria, southern Cameroon,
northern Gabon, southern Central African Republic, northern
Republic of the Congo, and north and east of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. H. m. meinertzhageni lives in eastern
Africa but in fragmented populations from eastern Democratic
Republic of the Congo to Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, and
Ethiopia (d’Huart & Yohannes 1995; d’Huart & Kingdon 2013).
The species seems to have been extirpated from Rwanda and
Burundi, and no reliable records have been obtained from
Tanzania (Grimshaw 1998; Kock & Howell 1999 (Figure 11.1).Descriptive Notes
The forest hog is the largest of the wild pigs in the world with only
some subspecies of Sus scrofa surpassing its size (Figure 11.2;
Meijaard et al. 2011). Head and body length ranges from 130 to 210
cm, tail length ranges from 25 to 45 cm, and the shoulder height
varies from 75 to 110 cm. The species weight ranges from 140 to
275 kg in adult males and 100 to 200 kg in adult females. Forest
hog have massive heads with prominent naked cheeks in males and.01312:33:38