Favorite Images of Red River Hogs

A list of my favorite images of red river hogs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_river_hog

The red river hog (Potamochoerus porcus), also known as the bush pig, is a wild member of the pig family living in Africa, with most of its distribution in the Guinean and Congolian forests. It is rarely seen away from rainforests and generally prefers areas near rivers or swamps.

The red river hog has striking orange to reddish-brown fur, with black legs and a tufted white stripe along the spine. Adults have white markings around the eyes and on the cheeks and jaws; the rest of the muzzle and face are a contrasting black.

The fur on the jaw and the flanks is longer than that on the body, with the males having especially prominent facial whiskers.

Unlike other species of pig native to tropical Africa, the entire body is covered in hair, with no bare skin visible.

The species is omnivorous, eating mainly roots and tubers, and supplements its diet with fruit, grasses, herbs, eggs, dead animal and plant remains, insects and lizards.

It uses its large muzzle to snuffle about in the soil in search of food, as well as scraping the ground with their tusks and fore-feet. They can cause damage to agricultural crops, such as cassava and yams.

Red river hogs are often active during the day but are primarily nocturnal or crepuscular.

They typically live in small groups of approximately six to ten animals, composed of a single adult male and a number of adult females and their young.

However, much larger groups, some with over 30 individuals, have been noted in particularly favourable habitats. The boar defends its harem aggressively against predators, with leopards being a particularly common threat.

They communicate almost continuously with grunts and squeals with a repertoire that can signal alarm, distress or passive contact.

Red river hogs breed seasonally, so that the young are born between the end of the dry season in February and the midpoint of the rainy season in July. Gestation lasts 120 days.

The mother constructs a nest from dead leaves and dry grass before giving birth to a litter of up to six piglets, with three to four being most common.

The piglets weigh 650 to 900 g (23 to 32 oz) at birth, and are initially dark brown with yellowish stripes and spots. They are weaned after about four months and develop the plain reddish adult coat by about six months; the dark facial markings do not appear until they reach adulthood at about two years of age.

They probably live for about fifteen years in the wild.