Ecology, Conservation and Management of Wild Pigs and Peccaries

Part I: Evolution, Taxonomy, and Domestication

10

with much dark grey or red–brown underwool and a long thick

mane. From almost the whole of Europe (historically extinct

in the British Isles and the Scandinavian peninsula), including

European Russia, North Africa, the Middle East, and east to the

Zagros Range in Iran.

?Sus nigripes Blanford, 1875. Central Asian wild boar.

Skull length 384–433.5 mm. Colour creamy gold to light grey

or brown, the hairs apparently unbanded; legs contrastingly

dark to black, face nearly white; no mane; pale or yellow under-

wool. This potential species needs verification; the few available

specimens appear different from S. scrofa, but at present it is

not possible to say whether the differences are consistent. It was

originally described from Kyrgyzstan, and similar specimens

are known from Transbaikal, so if this is a genuinely recogniz-

able species the distribution in central Asia must be fairly wide.

Sus ussuricus Heude, 1888. Far Eastern wild boar. Enormous

in size; skull length of males 423–482 mm, of females 402–

416  mm. Colour grey–yellow to nearly black, with light tips to

hairs; legs black, pale on posterior surfaces; face black, with white

band from mouth to jaw angle; underwool dense, light brown.

From Heilongjiang, Fu Song in Jilin and the Russian Far East.

Sus moupinensis Milne-Edwards, 1871. Chinese wild boar

(Figure 1.8). Pelage dark with dark red or yellow tips; legs black-

ish in front, yellow behind; snout and mouth–jaw angle bands

variable; mane short or nearly absent; underwool sparse or

absent. With an unusually deep preorbital fossa, recalling ‘ver-

rucose’ pigs. Much smaller: skull length of males 354–430 mm

(n = 38); of females, 354–410 mm. From Korea, almost all of

China, northern Burma, Vietnam and Laos. Sus bucculentus

Heude, 1892, described as a ‘verrucose’ pig, turns out to be sim-

ply an extreme specimen of this species.

Sus chirodontus Heude, 1888. Males are larger than in

S. moupinensis, and the species is more strongly sexually dimor-

phic; skull length of males 408–432 mm; of females, 342–368

mm, narrow across zygomatic arches, and with a long palate.

Pelage brindled yellow, the hair tips grey–yellow. Restricted to

the swamps south-west of Shanghai in south–central China.

Sus leucomystax Temminck, 1842. Japanese wild boar.

Small in size, skull small, its length increasing from south to

north: length 327 mm (male) and 299 mm (female) in Kyushu,

364 mm (male) and 332 mm (female) in northern Honshu. Skull

broad, with short nasals; limbs short; pelage yellow–brown

because of long light tips to black hairs; legs black; face with

white band from mouth to jaw angle, and over snout; mane vir-

tually absent; underwool light brown. From the main Japanese

islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku.

?Sus riukiuanus Kuroda, 1924. Ryukyu wild boar. A very

small-sized species, skull length averaging 275 mm in males,

257 mm in females, from the Ryukyu Islands. This may turn out

to be the same as the next species, which is very poorly known.

Sus taevanus Swinhoe, 1863. Formosa wild boar. A very

poorly known but small-sized pig (skull length averaging

332 mm in males, 318 mm in females) from Taiwan; black–

agouti pelage, with white line from mouth to jaw angle; mane

very poorly developed. If further material indicates that this

species and the Ryukyu form are the same, the name taevanus

takes priority.

Sus davidi Groves, 1981. Reuben David’s wild boar. Size rel-

atively small, averaging 365 mm in males (females unknown),

low-crowned, with short nasals and long lower third molars;

pelage light brown or yellow; has a long thick mane, contrast-

ing with shortish pelage, extending to rump. Light snout and

mouth–jaw angle bands present. Underwool sparse. From the

deserts of Iran, Pakistan and Rajasthan.

Sus cristatus Wagner, 1839. Indian wild boar. Black in col-

our with a prominent bristly dorsal crest from nape to rump.

Light face-bands not clearly marked. Skull length of males aver-

aging 379 mm in Nepal, 414 mm in southern India, 403 mm in

Sri Lanka, but a specimen from Bopeta, in the highlands of Sri

Lanka, is only 339 mm. Females from different regions average

about 370 mm. Skull high-crowned, with short nasals and small

teeth but long third molars.

Sus vittatus. Banded boar. Sparsely haired brownish or

greyish agouti, almost invariably with a white band across the

snout connected to another from mouth to jaw angle. Mane

fairly long, but sparse, the hairs often red- or yellow-tipped. No

underwool. Skull with short nasals and narrow occiput. From

peninsular Thailand and Tenasserim through the Malay penin-

sula to Sumatra, Java and their offshore islands. Specimens from

Sumbawa seem to belong to this species, and may have spread

naturally across the intervening straits. Pigs from small islands

tend to be much smaller on average than those from the Malay

Peninsula or the large islands: skull length in males averages

364 mm in the Malay Peninsula, 327–356 mm in different parts

of Sumatra, 352 mm in west Java, 328 mm in central and east-

ern Java, and 289 mm in Bali. Skull length in females averages

323 mm in the Malay Peninsula, 301 mm in Sumatra, and

330 mm in Java. Frantz et al. (2014) have recently shown that this

species was subject during the Pleistocene to introgression from

sympatric Sus verrucosus.

Verrucose group. As well as their canine character, these pigs

always have a relatively long snout, a deep, sharply outlined pre-

orbital fossa in the skull, and (in males) two or three pairs of

warts on the face. The ‘group’ is probably polyphyletic. All are

from South East Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The species are as follows.

Figure 1.8 Sichuan wild pig (Sus moupinensis) from Chengdu Zoo, China.

Photo by Colin Groves.

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