Warthog
It has only twelve teeth, including four impressive canines
This is a Suidae, i.e. from the large pig family and it indeed resembles a wild boar a little, with longer legs, however. But it’s African.
It is the only one of the family to have only twelve teeth, including four impressive canines, whereas other pigs have forty of them.
With its fearsome upward- bending teeth, it can defend itself and disembowel an attacker. It uses them also literally to plough the bush in search of roots and creatures living in the ground because it is an omnivore, an animal that eats almost everything.
Digging the ground with its fangs and its snout, it characteristically kneels on its front legs folded backwards, worthy of the articulation of our own wrists.
The strange bony excrescences on the sides of its head reinforce its skull for combat purposes and also its snout for excavating the earth.
And to travel, in Indian file often, Warthogs run with their tails drawn up straight, like a kind of antenna!
Warthogs
In Pairi Daiza, you can observe Warthogs in the African world.
A less threatened species
- Name: Warthog
- Latin name: Phacochoerus africanus
- Origin: Sub-Saharan Africa
- IUCN status: Least concerned
- Cites: --