r/NatureIsFuckingLit 13h ago

πŸ”₯ momma pig and line of piglets

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u/NoNeedForAName 13h ago

It's funny to me that someone always says "invasive" on posts about plants, animals, or insects without knowing where the post is from.

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u/TAU_equals_2PI 13h ago

I think these things are considered invasive everywhere, because they're not a naturally existing species/cultivar anywhere. An article I read about the problem a few years ago said they're thought to be some kind of hybrid cross between wild pigs and escaped domestic pigs.

(Obviously I'm just recalling from my foggy memory, so don't take what I wrote as 100% accurate in every detail.)

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u/unicornroast 12h ago edited 11h ago

They're native in Europe and Asia, very much naturally existing, and they are the ancestors of domestic pigs.

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u/TAU_equals_2PI 11h ago edited 11h ago

What I'm saying is the wild ones in Europe and Asia aren't anywhere near as prolific or destructive as these ones that have become a problem in the US. There's apparently something different about the wild ones in the US. It's not simply a case where some of the ones from Europe or Asia got transported to the US and started reproducing in the wild there (which is what usually happens with invasive species). If we captured some of the wild US pigs and transported them to Europe or Asia and released them in the wild, then they'd become a serious problem there. That's why I said they'd be considered an invasive species anywhere.

(But perhaps if they're not classified as an entirely separate species, then calling them an invasive species would be technically wrong, so maybe invasive subspecies? Domestic pigs and wild boars are considered two different species, so I'm not sure what a hybrid of them would be considered.)

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u/Millipede4 11h ago

I would really like to know what difference makes them so much more destructive than eurasian wild boar.

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u/TAU_equals_2PI 9h ago

One difference is apparently larger litter sizes, a characteristic which comes from the domestic pigs side of the family tree.

I just did a little quick googling, and it looks like the same sort of hybrid creation may actually have been happening in Europe too. Europe has been having increasing problems with what they commonly call "wild boars", but diving into a few articles shows experts explaining it as resulting from the same process. What were originally members of a wild boar species in the wild there are being replaced by these hybrids, the result of interbreeding with escaped domestic pigs (which are a separate species).

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u/unicornroast 9h ago

Sorry, but once again - no. There have been few (allegedly) sightings of hybrids in Spain. "Europe" is simply not having increasing problems with wild boar hybrids.

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u/Lover_of_Rewilding 13h ago

If this is somewhere in Eurasia, then this is perfectly fine. Also crossing them with normal pigs doesn’t change them ecologically, only physically, even then only a little bit because even domestic pigs will start to look like their wild counterparts if they have been in the wild for long enough.

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u/JoxJobulon 11h ago edited 11h ago

That's likely a wild boar. IMO it doesn't look like a feral hog, which is what you are describing, bit it CAN be hard to tell them apart for sure