 |
|
Pigs Around the World
In the wild, there is only one skin-care product available to pigs:
mud. A good coating helps protect any swine species from sunburn and
bug bites. And since a pig has no sweat glands, mud also draws heat
out through the skin, helping to regulate the pig's body temperature
on hot days. The need for mud is universal throughout the pig species
of the world, but other characteristics remain unique.
Take the babirusa, an endangered pig species.
Found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, the male has an unusual
set of tusks, the result of his canine teeth curling upwards and piercing
his snout. No one knows why babirusa developed these strange tusks,
and they appear to serve no purpose -- in fact, if the pig does not
wear his tusks down or lose them in combat, they will eventually grow
long enough to pierce his skull and kill him. Indonesians thought this
animal's bizarre tusks looked so much like a deer's antlers that they
named it "babirusa," which means "pig-deer."
Another facial adaptation for the pig is a beard. On the Indonesian
island of Borneo, just north of Sulawesi, bearded pigs spend their days
snout to the ground, sniffing out fruits that fall from the lush rainforest
canopy. In the process, these pigs provide an essential gardening service
for the forest. As they dig, their noses till the soil, creating furrows
for fruit seeds that drop to the ground as they eat. Their work helps
to regenerate tree growth in the rainforest.
One odd-looking pig species has tufts of hair dangling from its ears.
The tassel-eared red river hog, or potamochere, lives in central Africa.
Both males and females have these ear tassels, which scientists theorize
the hogs may shake to threaten predators. Red river hogs take advantage
of the forest clearings where elephants dig for water, running up to
drink once the elephants have left.
The peccary is not a pig, but a relative that shares the pig's sensitive
snout. The rarest of the peccary species, the Chacoan peccary, is found
in Bolivia's Gran Chaco National Park. Here, giant thorn bushes tower
over a dry ground. Only a handful of these peccaries exist in this rugged
habitat. Their more successful cousins -- the white-lipped peccary and
the collared peccary -- live in other tropical regions in Latin America.
|
|
 |
|
 
|
