40 Fun Facts About Peccaries (Javelinas)

In the picture book The Three Little Javelinas, which desert animal takes the Big Bad Wolf's role?

Coyote plays the villain in Susan Lowell's Southwestern retelling, and only the sister's house of adobe bricks holds firm against him.

Which cactus do Arizona's javelinas shred with their canine teeth and eat, spines and all?

Prickly pear is a javelina favourite, and the animals sometimes stomp on the pads first to squash the spines before eating.

The Chacoan peccary, known from fossils before it was found alive, is a taxon named for which biblical figure?

Lazarus taxon is the term for a species that seems to vanish and then reappears. The Chacoan peccary was described as extinct in 1930 and turned up alive in the 1970s.

The strong musky odor of peccaries has earned them a nickname that pairs 'pig' with which other animal?

Skunk pig is the nickname: the musk comes from glands on the back and below each eye, and it is strong enough for people to detect.

Which sense do javelinas rely on most to recognise herd mates and detect danger in the desert?

Smell does the work: javelinas rub against each other's musk glands so the whole herd carries one shared odor, and a stranger is noticed at once.

What nickname do Arizona wildlife officials give javelina newborns in their first three months of life?

Reds get the name from their red-brown or tan baby coats, and within a day of birth they are already walking and following the herd.

Why can a javelina that is only trying to escape seem to be charging right at a hiker?

Very poor eyesight is the cause: a javelina bolting through the brush often cannot see the person right in its path.

Which ancient American civilization kept herds of peccaries for food and for use in rituals?

Maya communities in the Yucatán penned and raised peccaries, and the animals' bones turn up at Mesoamerican sites going back to the early Olmec.

Arizona wildlife officials say javelina bites on people are almost always linked to which human habit?

Feeding them makes javelinas lose their fear of people and return as regulars, which often ends with the animals being removed and killed.

With coarse, hollow hair that insulates poorly, how does a javelina herd keep warm on cold desert nights?

Sleeping in a pile, one on top of another, saves heat overnight, and at sunrise the herd spreads out on south- or east-facing slopes to warm up.

What is the proper name for a herd of peccaries that live and travel together?

A squadron is the collective noun, and while many hold under ten animals, some herds of white-lipped peccaries have been counted at more than 100.

The name javelina reached English through Spanish from which language's word for 'mountain'?

Arabic jabal means mountain, and its phrase for a mountain swine became Spanish jabalí, the wild boar, whose feminine form gave English javelina.

Which domestic animal do javelinas treat as a natural predator, sometimes leaving both animals seriously hurt?

Dogs trigger a javelina's defences because wild canines hunt them, so Arizona officials advise leashing pets and quickly walking the other way.

Arizona officials warn that javelinas living around a home may also attract which predator?

Mountain lions prey on javelinas, which is one more reason officials urge residents to remove the food, water and shelter that draw herds in.

Big herds of white-lipped peccaries can drive off which rainforest predator with loud calls and clashing teeth?

Jaguar is the predator: herds of up to 300 white-lipped peccaries scream and clack their teeth loudly enough to be heard hundreds of metres away.

Arizona officials suggest spraying nuisance javelinas with water, vinegar or which diluted household cleaner?

Ammonia, mixed one part to nine parts water in a squirt gun, has an odor and a nasal sting that persuade a javelina to leave.

How does Arizona classify the javelina under its hunting rules, which make it unlawful to trap one?

Big game is the javelina's legal status, so a homeowner whose garden is being raided generally cannot trap, injure or kill one.

After a pregnancy of about five months, what does a javelina mother most commonly give birth to?

Twins are the usual javelina litter, each baby weighing about a pound, and a mother can raise two litters in a year.

Along with cactus, which spiky desert plant is a main component of the collared peccary's diet?

Agave hearts are a staple for desert herds, though collared peccaries will also take insects, eggs, lizards and even dead birds when the chance comes.

Javelina Rocks, Javelina Wash and a Javelina picnic area are all found in which desert national park?

Saguaro National Park, outside Tucson, has so many herds that javelinas have spent summer days napping below its visitor centre windows.

On which island off Venezuela's coast do locals call the native collared peccary a quenk?

Trinidad is the island where the peccary goes by that name; on neighbouring Tobago it has been hunted until it is exceedingly rare or gone.

The collared peccary's range runs from the southwestern United States as far south as which country?

Argentina marks the southern limit, so one species spans deserts, grasslands, swamps and rainforest across two continents.

Peccaries first walked into South America about three million years ago when which land bridge formed?

The Isthmus of Panama joined the two continents, letting peccaries, llamas and tapirs move south while ground sloths and opossums headed north.

San Diego Zoo has backed Proyecto Taguá since 1985 to protect Chacoan peccaries in which South American country?

Paraguay hosts the project, named for taguá, the local word for the Chacoan peccary, which is the largest of the three living species.

Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen proposed a fourth, 'giant' peccary species from the Amazon of which country?

Brazil was where the giant peccary was reported, but a 2011 review found it was just a large collared peccary and it lost its species status.

Collared peccaries were reintroduced in 2017 to which South American country after a century's absence?

Uruguay had lost its last collared peccaries about 100 years earlier, even though the species remains widespread from the US Southwest down through the tropics.

The word peccary comes from pakira, a word in which Indigenous language of northern South America?

Carib speakers' pakira also survives almost unchanged in French Guiana and Suriname, where the animal is still called by that name.

Javelinas are native, but true pigs reached Florida in 1539 with which Spanish explorer's expedition?

Hernando de Soto owned 700 hogs by the time he died, and escapees became the feral razorbacks that people now confuse with native peccaries.

The first written records of javelinas in what is now the United States came from which 18th-century outposts?

Jesuit missions logged them in the 1700s, and overgrazing by livestock may later have helped javelinas spread by turning grassland into cactus and mesquite.

Which South Texas city is home to the university whose teams have been called the Javelinas since 1925?

Kingsville students chose the mascot themselves, and after one of three live javelinas on campus attacked in 1929, the president called it a symbol of student character.

The Javelina Jundred, a 100-mile desert ultramarathon in Fountain Hills, Arizona, is held around which holiday?

Halloween weekend gives the race its party mood, with many runners in costume and prizes for the best outfit.

Around 1900, javelina hides shipped east and to Europe were turned into hairbrushes and which accessory?

Gloves were one product of the trade, and the hides doubled as barter at trading posts along the US–Mexico border.

Old peccary wallows that hold water through dry spells become vital breeding pools for which animals?

Frogs breed in the compacted hollows, which can stay wet after nearby ponds dry out, so biologists call peccaries ecosystem engineers.

What shape are the tusks that help tell a peccary from a true pig?

Short and straight tusks, unlike a pig's long curling ones, interlock when the mouth closes, bracing the jaw so a peccary can crack seeds as hard as palm nuts.

White-lipped peccaries move through the forest in broad groups, but how do collared peccaries usually travel?

In single file is how collared peccaries move, following a network of trails that lead the herd to water, food and shelter.

Chacoan peccaries seek out natural salt licks that form on the mounds built by which insects?

Ants' mounds form the licks, which supply Chacoan peccaries with calcium, magnesium and chlorine; road cuttings and land clearings create others.

How does the Chacoan peccary get the spines off a cactus before settling down to eat it?

It rolls it on the ground with its tough snout to rub the spines off, and may also pull spines out with its teeth and spit them away.

Which extinct Ice Age peccary of North America left so many bones in caves that herds probably sheltered there?

Flat-headed peccaries, about 2.5 feet tall with long running legs, are such common cave fossils that scientists think whole herds used caves regularly.

While adult javelinas take an afternoon nap, how do the babies of the herd amuse themselves on them?

Sliding down their backs after climbing on top is the favourite pastime, and the patient adults give a warning when they have had enough.

Besides rabies, javelinas can catch which viral disease that they may then pass on to household pets?

Distemper shows up as fever, coughing and runny eyes and nose, and salmonella outbreaks also take a toll on javelina herds from time to time.