Ecology, Conservation and Management of Wild Pigs and Peccaries

Chapter 28: Introduced wild pigs in North America

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gets more dished with both age and better nutrition. On one end
of this morphological spectrum, the wild boar skull is propor-
tionately elongate and narrow, has a straight dorsal profile, and
a posterior-slanting occipital wall. At the opposite end of the
spectrum, the feral pig skull is proportionately short and wide,
has a dished dorsal profile, and an anterior-slanting occipital
wall (Figure 28.4). Wild pig skulls are sexually dimorphic in
adults, with the crania and mandibles of males being larger for
most measurements (Mayer & Brisbin 2008). Five skull meas-
urements for 191 adult North American wild pigs are provided

in Table 28.1. Wild pig skulls can be taxonomically identified to

the three types through multivariate cranial analyses (Mayer &

Brisbin 1993, 2008).

Total body mass – Total body mass (i.e. intact weight with

no internal organs removed) is one of the most variable physi-

cal parameters among the wild pig populations found in North

America. Again, this variability stems from the aforemen-

tioned diversified ancestries of these populations. As a species,

Sus scrofa has the potential to reach very large body masses.

However, individuals of this species that are born and grow to

Figure 28.3 Illustration of the

morphological spectrum observed in

the introduced wild pigs (Sus scrofa) in

North America, varying from animals

that largely resemble Eurasian wild

boar (top) to animals that look like

modern-day domestic swine (bottom)

(photos by John J. Mayer).

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