How do the pigs of the world fit together?
Accepting that javalenas and warthogs are not directly related to other pigs (cannot interbreed), but what about bushpigs and the pigs of New and Old World.
Giant Forest Hogs separate too.
[URL=www.graaffreinetsafaris.co.za]

I did some research on this once, but can't find the file. I think I found about 27 species of "pigs".
I don't know what you mean by "how they fit together" but basically I can think of 3 main "groups"
The Europeans, the Africans and the Asians.

Aside from the Sus scrofa and subspecies, of which there are a surprising amount spread though Asia and Europe, There are some wierd and wonderful ones too, like the Porcula, Babyrousa.
I can only think of two Sus scrofa supspecies offhand, the riukianus and Leucomastix, both Asian varieties but there are many more.

A new species of Giant Peccary has also been discovered in a South American jungle, which I believe is about twice as big as any other Peccary so far known.

The Giant Bushpigs are Hylocerous ssp.
The Red river hog and bushpigs are Potamocerous ssp.
The warthogs - Phacocerous ssp.

Have a look on the web for more info.

Thanks for the info. What got me thinking was an advert in South Africa for European Wild Boar and I wondered if they would interact with our bushpig, but realised that domestic pigs do not, which are in turn similar to the boar.

And javelinas are not true pigs. They are peccaries...

Well you asked so I pulled put my wifes zoo and wild animal medicine book.

Here goes.

All pigs are of the super family of suidoidae

There are two families

The suidae

There are five genera of suidae included are 8 species.

Sus scrofa, The wild boar which is an old world hog

Phacochoerus aethiopicus,The warthog

Potamochoerus porcus, The Bush pig

Hylochoerus meinertzhageni, Giant forest hog

The reason none of these hogs can not interbreed is because they are of a different genera.

There are several other species of the genus Sus
In Java and Borneo

And the Barbiusa


The other family is the tayassuidae

Which includes two species

They are the collared and the white lipped peccary which are new world animals.

Peccary are in the order artiodactyla which are even toed ungulates. And the super family suidoidae which include peccary and pigs. However the peccary and all other pigs are separate families therefore could never cross breed.

The peccary are in the super family suidae. They are more closely related to pigs than anything else.

All domestic pigs are derived from the sus scrofa, the wild boar

I can not find where peccary are related to anything besides pigs despite all of the rumors I've heard.

For what it's worth.

Ok apparently there are two species of Warthog as well.

Aethiopicus is the desert warthog.

And Aethiopicus Africanus which is the common warthog.

AND

The bush pig is the

Potamochoerus larvatus

and the red river hog is

Potamochoerus porcus

So it looks like a bush pig and red river hog could interbreed posiibly.

I don't know if there is any end to this stuff so I'll just quit while I'm ahead.

Interesting stuff!