NOVA Online | Animal Hospital

Animal Hospital menu (see bottom of page for text links)

Chacoan Peccary

Yes. You've correctly named the Chacoan peccary (Catagonus wagneri).

The Chacoan peccary looks a lot like a big, hairy pig. And it grunts and snorts like a pig, too. Yet while the peccary shares a common ancestry with the pig, the two animals are very different, both anatomically and genetically.

The Chacoan peccary is the largest of three different types of peccaries, weighing in at about 45 kilograms (100 pounds). It lives mostly in the Gran Chaco area of Paraguay, South America, an area that makes up 60 percent of the country's land. There, where the land is flat and dry with seasonal floods, the Chacoan peccary feasts on tubers, roots, cactus pads and fruit and flowers (sometimes snacking on small invertebrates such as snails).

You would likely find the Chacoan peccary in small groups of three to seven males and females. They are considered endangered in Paraguay, where they are threatened by a loss of natural habitat due to development, and are also hunted as a food source.

Continue: name animal #5.

Don't Blame Your Pet | Ask the Behaviorists | Name that Animal
Resources | Transcript | Animal Hospital Home