Sus scrofa painted Eurasia before it filled farms worldwide
Wild boar—also called Eurasian wild pig—are native across much of Eurasia and North Africa and have been widely introduced. Up to sixteen subspecies in four skull-based groups were recognised as of 2005. They live in matriarchal societies. English mixed true wild swine with large domestic pigs after British wild boar vanished.
Sus scrofa probably arose on Southeast Asian islands such as Indonesia and the Philippines during the Early Pleistocene, then spread across mainland Eurasia and North Africa, pushing aside rival pigs like S. strozzii. People later carried it to the Americas and Oceania, and it now ranks among the most widely distributed mammals on Earth. Its closest wild relative is the bearded pig. The Latin species name scrofa simply means "sow."
It is also the ancestor of most domestic pigs. Archaeology points to pigs being managed from wild boar in the Tigris Basin as early as 13,000–12,700 BCE, with a separate domestication in China about 8,000 years ago. Europe's first farm pigs came from the Near East, but local boar were soon tamed in turn and the imported genes faded out. Breeding reversed the build: domestic pigs carry about 70% of their weight in the hindquarters, whereas a wild boar's muscle sits in head and shoulders.
That front end is a plough. The head can make up a third of body length, and powerful neck muscles let a boar dig 8–10 cm into frozen soil and flip rocks of 40–50 kg. Boar can sprint at 40 km/h and clear about 1.5 m. Males run 20–30% heavier than females, grow a mane and ever-growing tusks, with exposed lower canines 10–12 cm long, and in the rut develop a shield of tissue up to 3 cm thick over the flanks. Size tracks food: Mediterranean males may average 50 kg, while giants in Primorsky Krai and Manchuria have reached 300–350 kg. The nose is keen enough for drug detection in Germany, but eyesight is poor.
Females and young live together in matriarchal groups while adult males mostly roam alone. Wolves are the main predator, replaced by tigers in the Far East and Komodo dragons in the Lesser Sundas. As of 2005, up to 16 subspecies were split into Western, Indian, Eastern and Indonesian groups by skull height and lacrimal bone length. Hybrids with feral pigs are now serious pests in the Americas and Australia.
Source: Wild boar
