Wild Boar (Sus Scrofa Cristatus)

¤ Physical Aspects

You would do better to be on your guard against this animal when in the jungle. This is the species that has the guts to challenge even the tiger. With typical pig-like features, an average wild boar rises to a height of 90cm, and weighs more than 100kg, although some can weigh as much as 225kg.

The most distinctive feature of the wild boar is a pair of elongated canines that grow upward and outward. It wears a greyish-black coat that is scantily covered with thick bristle-like hairs arising from its nape and winding their way to its posterior.

The wild boar has an incredible sense of smell, although it has fairly average eyesight and hearing. Its body is well built, but what really makes it stand out is its courage and determination to live and to win the wild bouts. Its thick coat with its layer of fat helps it recover even from the gravest of injuries.


¤ Sighting of Wild Boar

It is not an unusual sight to see a herd of 5-6 animals grazing silently in the middle of the forest, but come nightfall, and the herd becomes really confident. Wild boars are known to raid and damage crops of the farmers living on the peripheries of National Parks and Sanctuaries.

Amazingly, wild boars do not have any fixed cycle for breeding. But whenever it is the mating season, a fair and formal contest decides the dominant male who gets to mate with the female boar. After a gestation period of four months, the mother gives birth to 4-6 cubs.

Thanks to poaching and the loss of habitat, the number of the wild boars is fast decreasing. Once there were 6-7 species found in the sub-continent, but today only a single species has survived.