There are 8 genera and 22 species of wild boars worldwide, spreading throughout Central Europe, Asia and Africa. Wild boars are tan or black on all sides, with long front legs and short hind legs, larger bodies, and short and powerful limbs. Boars have sharp fangs and can reach a length of up to 20 cm. When they are threatening, they will erect thick manes, showing a powerful attack.
In May 2007, an 11-year-old boy in Alabama, Jamison Stone, usa, hunted with his father and two guides in eastern Alabama. Suddenly, a large wild boar appeared in Jamison's field of vision, and Jamison pulled out his pistol and fired 8 shots at the wild boar in a row, and the injured wild boar frantically fled.
After chasing for three hours, Jamison and his party found the carcass of the wild boar in the woods. According to reports, the wild boar shot by 11-year-old Jamison weighed 528 kilograms, which can be called the "wild boar king".
Wild boars are national second-class protected animals on the mainland, but they are rampant in the United States, and in the past few decades, due to the local climate and lack of natural enemies, the number of wild boars in the United States has exceeded 6 million, and the annual damage to the local area has reached 1.5 billion US dollars.
In fact, the United States is not the origin of wild boar, but formed by the wilding of domestic pigs after release. European colonists and explorers brought domestic pigs to North America, where they raised them free-range, and some fled into the wild. These domestic pigs quickly adapted to the local environment and gradually began to rewire, growing fangs and changing the front and back ratios of the body.
So why do domestic pigs grow fangs after being released into the wild? Is their meat as good as that of domestic pigs? Is there reproductive isolation between wild boar and domestic boar? Let's talk about these related topics.
1. How is the difference between a wild boar and a domestic pig?
Domestic pigs are domesticated from wild boars, about 11,000 years ago, and although domestic pigs are already a subspecies of wild boars, there is still a big difference between the two.
The first is the difference in body color: the wild boar cubs are light in color and have multiple longitudinal stripes on their bodies, which slowly disappear after a few months. Adult wild boars are predominantly covered in dark brown hair, which makes them hide in the mountains and forests and are not easy to spot. The hairs on the whole body of domestic pigs are mainly white, and the skin is pink.
The second is the difference in teeth: wild boars have scary fangs, especially male wild boars, and the fangs are usually exposed, which are actually their canine teeth, which can continue to grow. Domestic pigs rarely see their fangs because they are removed shortly after they are born.
Again, the proportions of the body are different: the front half of the boar's body is very thick and strong, and the head is relatively large. This is related to their habits, wild boars need to dig holes and hit enemies with their heads, so the front part of the body is thicker and the back half is thinner.
While domestic pigs have a large amount of fat concentrated in the waist and buttocks, they do not need a strong front half to fight against the enemy, so the overall body size of domestic pigs has evolved to be thicker in the back half than the front half.
2. Why do domestic pigs grow fangs after they are released?
The fangs of the wild boar actually refer to its two pairs of upper and lower canine teeth, the male wild boar's canine teeth can grow for life, up to 20 cm in length, and at least 3 cm canine teeth will be exposed for a long time, while the female canine teeth are relatively short and generally not exposed.
For wild boars, fangs are an aggressive weapon, and male wild boars duel through fangs during the breeding season, and female wild boars also use their fangs to bite each other in danger.
In life, people can hardly see that domestic pigs will grow fangs, but if the domestic pigs are put into the wild, after a period of adaptation, the domestic pigs can grow crazy fangs, and even "rewild" into wild boars, why? The main reasons are as follows:
In fact, domestic pigs domesticated from wild boars are not without fangs, but their fangs have no chance to grow. Domestic pigs often arch back and forth, and in order to prevent them from fighting each other or arching things, domestic pigs usually have their canine teeth removed shortly after birth. Although the canine teeth of domestic pigs can continue to grow, they cannot regenerate after being removed.
In order to ensure the delicious meat, most boars except breeding pigs will be castrated at infancy, and once the boar is castrated, the growth rate of fangs is very slow.
Liaoning old man Xu Changjin once raised a boar, raised for 18 years, the weight of the pig reached 900 kg, this boar has 14 cm long fangs, it can be seen that the domestic pig has fangs.
In addition, the fangs of wild boars usually begin to grow and be exposed gradually after the age of 1, but domestic pigs are usually listed at 3 to 4 months old, and even the pigs raised in rural areas are mostly slaughtered at the end of the year, so most domestic pigs have waited until they have grown fangs and have been served on the table.
When the domestic pigs are in the pigsty, they don't have to worry about the source of food, eat and sleep every day, sleep and eat, and don't need to fight against the environment. But in the wild, pigs need to find their own food and need to fight against the harsh natural environment. The environment that the domestic pigs in the wild face is no different from that of wild boars, so in order to survive, the wild nature of domestic pigs will be stimulated.
Not only that, but the lifestyle of domestic pigs in the wild will also change, they will instinctively look for the same kind, and gradually restore the group lifestyle, thereby improving their survival and reproduction ability in the wild.
Lifestyle changes will also change the physical fitness of pigs, the first half of the body will become more and more stout, the body shape and wild boar will become more and more similar, and the characteristics of domestic pigs will gradually disappear.
So, of course, the premise of these changes is that the domestic pig released into the wild has not had its fangs extracted or overstated.
3. Will the quality of domestic pork change after rewilding?
Pork is one of the main sources of meat in people's lives, delicious and tender, mainly because domestic pigs have a high fat content and meat fiber is relatively fine.
But if the domestic pig is let go of the wild, after living for a period of time and gradually "rewilding", its meat quality is not so delicious. Pigs in the wild have a lot of activity, and they have to travel long distances every day to find food, which will reduce their fat content and thicken muscle fibers, so "wild boar meat" is old and chai, and it is relatively hard to eat.
Not only that, because pigs are omnivorous animals, domestic pigs released into the wild eat everything in order to survive, sometimes even rotten meat. This leads to the "wild boar" meat not only has a great fishy taste, but also contains a lot of harmful substances, and the taste is also relatively poor.
You might say, if the meat quality is so poor, why do people still eat wild boar meat? In fact, wild boar meat is really not delicious, the fishy taste is particularly heavy, as for why there are still people eating wild boar meat, I am afraid that they just eat it for the sake of eating "wild meat", it will look very face-saving!
But then again, while the number of wild boars on the mainland has now increased, some areas have even spread, causing damage to local agriculture. However, wild boars are still "national second-level protected animals" and cannot be hunted at will, and the number of wild boars can only be controlled with the permission of relevant departments.
4. Is there reproductive isolation between domestic pigs and wild boars?
Reproductive isolation is a mechanism of isolation between different species in nature, two different species can not produce offspring, or give birth to offspring that are not fertile, such as horses and donkeys can cross to produce mules, but mules do not have fertility.
So is there reproductive isolation between domestic and wild boar? The answer is no. Domestic pigs were domesticated from wild boars 11,000 years ago, and the genes of the two are very similar, which is why domestic pigs are biologically classified as a subspecies of wild boars.
Therefore, after the domestic pigs are released into the wild, in the process of gradual "rewilding", they may reproduce with real wild boars, which will speed up the rewilding of domestic pigs.
One might mention the number of chromosomes, because there are some differences in the number of chromosomes between the 27 wild boar subspecies worldwide, such as 38 chromosomes for Japanese wild boars, 36 chromosomes for European wild boars, and 38 chromosomes for domestic pigs.
So can wild boars and domestic pigs with different numbers of chromosomes reproduce offspring? The answer is yes, because the main factor that determines reproductive isolation is genetic similarity, regardless of the number of chromosomes.
That is to say, wild boars with 36 chromosomes and domestic pigs with 38 chromosomes, there is no reproductive isolation between the two, and they can reproduce offspring, depending on the similarity of the genes of domestic pigs and wild boars. It is just that the cubs born will have an extra chromosome from the domestic pig and cannot be paired normally with the chromosomes of wild boars.
5. Conclusion
Domestic pigs released into the wild, in order to adapt to the harsh environment in the wild, will gradually develop towards the physical characteristics and living habits of wild boars, and domestic pigs will gradually feralize. The canine teeth in the mouth of domestic pigs will gradually grow fangs like wild boars because there is no artificial intervention.
The temperament of domestic pigs will become more and more fierce, and their body structure will change, and they will gradually have the same fighting ability as wild boars, and these changes are so that they can better adapt to the wild environment.
What do you think about this topic?