Wild Boar

• It is the wild ancestor of every domestic pig in the world.
• Its piglets are born with a striped pattern that works as camouflage and fades at 3 to 4 months.
• It is an opportunistic omnivore, feeding on roots, bulbs, seeds and carrion.
• sentidosIt has an extraordinarily keen sense of smell that lets it detect food buried more than 20 centimetres underground.
• locomociónIt can swim considerable distances between islands near the coast, and has colonised several Mediterranean islands naturally in this way.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (mammal)

Habitat and environment

Forests, scrubland and wetlands of Eurasia and North Africa, and widely introduced across the Americas and Oceania

Birth weight

0.4-0.8 kg at birth, with the characteristic longitudinal stripes that fade at 3 to 4 months

Size at birth

0.4-0.8 kg at birth

Sexual maturity

Female: ~1 year | Male: ~2 years (though it rarely breeds successfully before the age of 5)

Gestation / incubation

108-120 days

Litter / clutch size

4 to 6 piglets per litter (up to 10-12 in good conditions)

Life expectancy in captivity

Documented record of up to 27 years in one subspecies

Sources consulted: Animal Diversity Web; A-Z Animals; AnAge (genomics.senescence.info); BioKIDS; AAAC Wildlife Removal; Animalia.bio; Animal Kingdom; Wiley (birth rate offspring survival study); PMC (puberty female wild boar study)