Species group · Mammals
Peccaries
WAnimals has 3 species of peccary, in the family Tayassuidae.
- 3 species
- 1 family
- 21 countries
- 31 parks
- Weight
- 14 kg – 43 kg
- Length
- 80 cm – 1.4 m
- Lifespan
- 9 – 13 years
Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 3.
All 3 species of peccaries on WAnimals
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
Conservation status
1 Least Concern1 Vulnerable1 Endangered
2 species in this group are in a threatened category according to the IUCN.
Where they live
Recorded in 21 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
Where to see them
Did you know…?
Its musky smell is so strong that it is sometimes noticed before the animal itself is seen.
From Collared Peccary
It eats roots, fruit, cactus, insects and the occasional small vertebrate.
From Collared Peccary
It lives in desert, rainforest, scrub and dry forest from the south-western United States to Argentina.
From Collared Peccary
When the herd feels threatened it clashes its canines together, producing a collective clattering that carries a long way and that has made more than one jaguar back off.
From White-Lipped Peccary
Its wallows, the pools it opens and maintains as it passes, work as breeding grounds for frogs and invertebrates: where the white-lipped peccary disappears, several amphibian species disappear with it.
From White-Lipped Peccary
It was described as a living species in 1975, having been known only from fossils.
From Chacoan Peccary
It was described as a fossil species in 1930 and believed extinct until living animals were found in the Paraguayan Chaco in 1974: it is one of the great rediscoveries of modern zoology.
From Chacoan Peccary
It eats cactus and, before swallowing, rolls the pads along the ground with its snout to strip off the spines; its kidneys are specially adapted to process the oxalic acid in those plants.
From Chacoan Peccary