This is my Babirusa fact sheet!

ANIMAL:

                                         Babirusa             Babyrousa babyrussa

Type of Animal:

Wild Pig

Habitat:

Rainforest, river forest, swamp forest

Location(s):

Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Togian, Sula, and Buru

Appearance:

Boars have long upper canine tusks curving backward over front of face w/ lower canines growing in front of face. Tusks almost absent in sows. Gray coloration w/ pinkish belly on both sexes.

Food/Diet:

Leaves, fruit, berries, roots, insect larvae, seeds, nuts, tubers, carrion, invertebrates, buds, grass, small vertebrates, eggs. Cannibalism reported on newborn piglets by adults other than mom.

Status in Wild:

Endangered

Conservation:

Breeding from zoos, wildlife parks & breeding centers

Lifestyle:

Usually found in small groups consisting of 1-4 sows (always related to each other) & offspring plus a boar. Younger related boars found in small bachelor groups, nonbreeding adult boars are solitary.

Additional Info:

Males:

Females:

Young:

Group:

Called: Boar Sow Piglet Sounder
Weight: 198 lbs 132 lbs 10 lbs Gestation: 

Life Span:

5.3 months
Height: 2.6 ft 2.13 ft
Body Length: 3.6 ft 3.3 ft 10 years in wild, up to 24 years in captivity
Tail Length: 0.95 ft Same

 

Main predators of adults are pythons & feral dogs. Civets & occasionally, strange male babirusas, prey on piglets.
Sexually mature at 10 months old.
Endangered due to logging, habitat loss, hunting for meat/sport/tusks, persecution as crop pests, and forest fires.
Piglets stay w/ group for 8-10 months. Unlike other pigs, only 1 or 2 piglets born in litter.
Fights between boars often lead to death due to injuries inflicted by lower tusks. The upper tusks serve mostly for display.
They clatter teeth when excited & communicate by low grunts/moans.
They’re rather fast animals.
They wallow to get rid of insects/parasites.
They sharpen their lower tusks on trees.

Fun Fact(s):

Indonesian people have based masks on Babirusa’s appearance & even give dead ones as gifts.
They’re known to be very flighty/nervous, though mothers will attack if piglets are threatened.
There’s some dispute between Jews/Muslims whether these animals are kosher or not, since it has cloven hooves & 4-chambered stomach like a ruminant but it’s a pig.
They’re also called “pig deer.”
There’s also some dispute whether these animals are more related to pigs or to hippos.
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2 responses to this post.

  1. Posted by Brooke on February 11, 2012 at 2:23 am

    It’s related to a pig or boar right?

    Reply

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