#Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii

[inatungulates]

Southern warthog Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii

With blue crane Anthropoides paradiseus

Observed by alex_willow, CC BY-NC

[jjsgrl2012]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[muhammadiqbaldar]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day

[john123521]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[radie]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day http://bit.ly/2IEtEX7

[ultrareputationmarketing]

Cool photo. Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day

[pavel-b-posts]

http://twitter.com/PavelB23/status/976262922447056902

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day https://t.co/axB80b1Ouq pic.twitter.com/m98rQ2Iuxt

— Pavel Bondar (@PavelB23) March 21, 2018

[michaelrosa1979]

Picture of the day for March 21, 2018 Picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day

[mattpackwood]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[yemkeyare]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[wolfcolleen]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[inatungulates]

Southern warthog Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii

Observed by simben, CC BY-NC-ND

Warthogs Phacochoerus spp. are very unusual pigs, and a lot of their strangeness is related to their specialist diet - they are almost exclusively grass-eaters. They graze on grass most of the year, eat grass seed at the end of the rainy season, and during the driest times of year, it is the rhizomes of grass - not tubers or bulbs- that they dig up with their especially-stiffened nasal discs. Apart from the occasional small animal or bit of carrion - typical meaty supplements in the diets of herbivores - grass is essentially their only food; they will even eat partially-digested grass from the stomach and intestines of other grazers killed by predators.

The posture taken by the adult warthog in the foreground of this photo is the typical grazing position of warthogs, another unique feature of their grass-eating lifestyle. Their wrist joints are reinforced with toughened pads so they can "kneel" like this and feed on short grass. This behavior is not seen in other pigs; a captive bushpig Potamochoerus larvatus raised with warthogs "was occasionally seen to kneel in the same manner [...] but once in this position it was clearly perplexed about what to do next and neither rooted nor grazed and soon stood up."

The quote, and much of the information above, is referenced from:

Cumming, DHM. 2013. Phacochoerus africanus Common Warthog. pp. 54-60 in J Kingdon and M Hoffmann (eds.), Mammals of Africa Volume VI: Hippopotamuses, Pigs, Chevrotain, Giraffes, Deer and Bovids. Bloomsbury.

On that note, I'll take a second to plug the book. If you have the ability to acquire a copy (physical, or, like me, scrounged-up PDF) of Mammals of Africa, do it. It's a six-volume set covering all known non-cetacean mammals of mainland Africa at the time of writing. It is an invaluable reference packed with extremely-thorough observations and field data, and in addition to being a great reference tool filled with Kingdon's beautiful and vivacious illustrations, I find the articles in it to be a very pleasant, fascinating read.

[eisema]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[leorut]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day Learn more.

[stacybraiuca]

via Twitter https://twitter.com/stacybraiuca

[pavel-b-posts]

Wikipedia picture of the day on March 21, 2018: Male common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus sundevallii) in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. Tomorrow is World Water Day https://t.co/axB80b1Ouq pic.twitter.com/m98rQ2Iuxt

— Pavel Bondar (@PavelB23) March 21, 2018