Pygmy Hog

The skin of the pygmy hog is a grayish-brown color, and its coat consists of blackish-brown bristles. Its irises are hazel brown, and it usually has no facial warts. Its head is sharply tapered with a slight crest of hair on the forehead and on the back of the neck. It has well-developed teeth, with upturned canines and molars with rounded cusps. Adult males have the upper canines visible on the sides of their mouths. As suggested by its name, the pygmy hog differs from other members of the Suidae by the extreme reduction of its body size, and it is the smallest pig species. An adult pygmy hog weighs between 6.6 and 9.7 kg (15 and 21 lb), with the average male weighing about 8.5 kg (19 lb). From its hoof to its shoulder, the pygmy hog ranges from about 20–25 cm (7.9–9.8 in) tall and is about 55–71 cm (22–28 in) long. Females are only slightly smaller than males, and both sexes have tails approximately 2.5 cm (0.98 in) long.

The pygmy hog is endemic to northeast India and was once widespread in the tall, wet grasslands of the Terai from Uttar Pradesh through Nepal to Bangladesh, northern West Bengal and Assam. It inhabited early successional riverine grasslands dominated by Imperata cylindrica, Saccharum munja, S. spontaneum, S. bengalenis, Themeda villosa and Narenga porphyrocoma. In its most pristine state, these grasslands were intermixed with a wide variety of herbaceous plants and early colonizing shrubs and young trees. Growing up to 1–4 m (3 ft 3 in – 13 ft 1 in) in height, these grass species were maintained by periodic burning, which posed a great threat to the pygmy hog. Since these grass species were also commercially important thatching grasses, they were harvested annually, thereby also causing great disruption to the pygmy hog habitat. The pygmy hog is currently on the verge of extinction. By 2002, the only viable population, consisting of only a few hundred individuals, lived in small grassland pockets of Manas National Park in Assam and in an adjacent reserve forest in the Manas Tiger Reserve. In 2013, it was estimated that only about 250 pygmy hogs existed.

Pygmy hogs are social animals that live in small family groups consisting of one or two females and their offspring. They are non-territorial, and sometimes family groups can consist of as many as 20 individuals. Adult males are generally solitary and live separately rather than with the family group. However, they do maintain loose contact with the basic family group throughout the year. Pygmy hogs also have a unique nesting behavior which the tall grasses of their habitat enable them to perform. In the wild, they make firm nests in which to sleep by digging small trenches, using dry grasses and vegetation to line them. They sleep in these nests at night, but also retreat to these nests during the heat of the day, and use them to warm up in the winter. The nests are also used for birthing and to hide and protect newborn piglets. Piglets are born greyish-pink in color, and develop a brown coat with faint yellow stripes along their body length before they attain their final adult coloring. Their average lifespan is between 8 and 14 years in the wild, and they become sexually mature at one or two years old. …