Alice White
Africa is an amazing continent. Its vast expanses are inhabited by a huge number of animals – the most diverse and amazing. Countless herbivores, many carnivores. And, of course, even here it could not do without pigs. In Africa, this family is represented by warthogs and brush-eared pigs. The object of our interest is precisely warthogs.
Many, probably, watched cartoons with a funny couple – Timon and Pumbaa, a meerkat, and a warthog. Live warthogs are quite similar to the usual pigs, only shorter-legged (one and a half to two meters long and 0.65-0.85 m high) and with some kind of flattened head. If you take a closer look, you can see thinner skin, the absence of a protective layer of bristles, but a long mane on the head and back. But warthogs have many other features besides their appearance.
Firstly, they are the only pigs that initially lead a diurnal lifestyle. During the day, warthogs actively feed, they sleep at night. But this is how they sleep … It should be noted here that these guys are very territorial. Each family has its own place of permanent residence. And on this territory, the pigs look for crevices in the rocks, caves, pits, or burrows of nocturnal aardvark inhabitants. But if there is no burrow, then the warthogs very deftly cope with the task of providing the family with housing. The housing issue does not spoil them, and this is second.
Now a little about the family life of warthogs. The basis of the family group is made up of females with piglets, usually from one to three. Sometimes they can gather even more in especially rich places, but all the same, it will be a unification of families with their own internal organization. Adult males can live with females, or they lead an autonomous way of life. Young males are going to bachelor “gangs”. Among themselves, boars can start loud fights, but never reaching the point of killing or using fangs. By the way, the canines of good specimens can reach half a meter. Fights mainly consist of threatening positions, growls, tail-beating. What’s more interesting is that the tail for a warthog is an excellent indicator of psychological state, since it is long and flexible.
But no matter what fights and clarification of relations within the family would be, external enemies force the herd to immediately rally. They immediately become stubborn and very brave defenders of their children and territory. The warthog weighs up to 150 kg and develops a speed of up to 50 km / h, is armed with strong fangs and exorbitant impudence. Only lions and leopards dare to associate with a warthog, and even these kings of the savanna do not always leave with their prey.
Moreover, such impudence is typical not only for a group of pigs, but even one single warthog can be a big problem for a hunter.
Fortunately, warthogs do not like cultivated land and therefore stay far enough away from human settlements. They do not compete with people yet.
