page_title: Pig
section_title: Description and behaviour
hierarchical_section_title: Pig / Description and behaviour
caption_attribution_description: English: Domestic pig skull. Sus domesticus Specimen of domestic pig skull prepared by the bone maceration technique and on display at the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP. This file was published as the result of a partnership between the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP, the RIDC NeuroMat and the Wikimedia Community User Group Brasil. This GLAM project is reported. Photography: Museum of Veterinary Anatomy FMVZ USP. Author: Wagner Souza e Silva.
context_page_description: A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the even-toed ungulate family Suidae. Pigs include domestic pigs and their ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar, along with other species. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents, ranging from Europe to the Pacific islands. Suids other than the pig are the babirusa of Indonesia, the pygmy hog of Asia, the warthog of Africa, and another genus of pigs from Africa. The suids are a sister clade to peccaries.
  Juvenile pigs are known as piglets. Pigs are highly social and intelligent animals.
  With around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domestic pig is among the most populous large mammals in the world. Pigs are omnivores and can consume a wide range of food. Pigs are biologically similar to humans and are thus frequently used for human medical research.
context_section_description: A typical pig has a large head with a long snout that is strengthened by a special prenasal bone and by a disk of cartilage at the tip. The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is a very acute sense organ.  There are four hoofed toes on each foot, with the two larger central toes bearing most of the weight, but the outer two also being used in soft ground.
  The dental formula of adult pigs is , giving a total of 44 teeth. The rear teeth are adapted for crushing.  In the male, the canine teeth form tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by constantly being ground against each other.
  Occasionally, captive mother pigs may savage their own piglets, often if they become severely stressed. Some attacks on newborn piglets are non-fatal.  Others may cause the death of the piglets and sometimes, the mother may eat the piglets. It is estimated that 50% of piglet fatalities are due to the mother attacking, or unintentionally crushing, the newborn pre-weaned animals.
caption: Skull of a domestic pig
   (Sus scrofa domesticus)
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