Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ƒ/8
400 mm
1/800
800
Even the pigs need weapons in Africa.
And while the warthog reminds me of an orcish inversion of Hogwarts, we thought they were quite cute, especially the piglets.
And they make a mighty fine bacon…. =)
11 responses to “Battle Pig!”
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But these porkers don’t have curly tails like their domestic cousins.
Did you notice his rear-mounted telescopic antenna? Very cool.
When warthogs are covering ground (proceeding purposefully from A to B rather than just hanging out) the tail goes straight up like a whip antenna and has a little hair tuft at the end – much like an auto antenna with a little Union 76 ball on the end. But in this case it helps humans to follow their movement as the tail sticks up above the surrounding grass-land like a periscope on an ocean. When a family is travelling, you’ll see a single file convoy of these little flags making their way across the veldt.
I never figured out what the evolutionary motivation was for this development, rather it seems like it would impart some vulnerability.
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Jitze: I love the comments!
As for the tail purpose, we have noticed a similar pattern in several prey species as well as pack hunters (like the painted wolf, hyena) versus the ambush hunters (big cats). They often have a white bob and distinctive rump markings. The tail goes up when on the run. The explanation we got was that this was to aid staying together as it can be very hard to see the rest of the group when high tailing it, so to speak. =)
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Hah! Memory of yesterday’s happenings sometimes eludes me, but half a century ago – not a problem…
In Swahili a domestic pig is "nguruwe" but a warthog is "ngiri" or "mgwasi" – that knowledge was retrieved in millisecs, but I’ve already forgotten the name of the prescription my doc ordered for me just the other day.
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