Chacoan Peccary Facts

Chacoan Peccary Profile

The Suines are a suborder of some of the smartest, toughest, and most emotionally intelligent animals we know about, and share so much in common with the best aspects of humanity that our treatment of them is just plain indecent. 

Most suines are members of the Suidae subfamily of “pigs”, but their lesser-known sister taxon, the so-called “Skunk pigs” are equally worthy of a shoutout, and one species in particular is so rare that science didn’t know it existed until the ‘70s. 

Known to the locals as the “Spirit masters of the forest”, the Chacoan Peccary is the largest species so far discovered and is already in tremendous danger of extinction. 

Chacoan Peccary Facts Overview

The Chacoan peccary was so elusive that modern science didn’t believe it still existed until it was first recorded in the wild in 1972.

Of course, the local people knew of it, but their relationship was one of balance, maintained in part by respect for the animal and by how difficult it was to reach.

Hiding in some of the most arid forests there are, the peccary gets by on cactus fruits, salt licks and sometimes carrion, and trots about seemingly content with all of this. Its only problem now is the rapid destruction of its ranges and the disease that comes with the modern human perpetrators. 

Interesting Chacoan Peccary Facts

1. Skunk pigs

Even-toed ungulates are an order of mammals that make up a huge percentage of the available tetrapods. 

They come in four general flavours: the majority of those familiar to us in the suborder Ruminata, like goats sheep and cows.

Then, there are camels and llamas and their relatives in Tylopoda. The third group is the Whippomorpha, which contains the cetaceans and the hippos (a whippopotamus is just a very large human dominatrix and not included in this group); and that leaves us with the Suiformes, containing the pigs and peccaries. 

Most of what we call pigs fit into the Suidae family, but there’s the lesser-known sister taxon of Tayassuidae, which holds three genera of very piggy little animals called Peccaries, or “Skunk pigs”, and these generally look like scruffier, cuter versions of wild boars. 

Peccaries evolved in the Americas and can weigh as little as 20 kg soaking wet, though the Chacoan peccary is the largest of them all, reaching more than twice that. Like the Suids, they are caring animals with a body of solid muscle and tusk that can punch a hole in most threats. 

They differ from pigs by their downward-pointing upper canines, which curve into upward tusks in Suids. They also have only two functioning toes on their back feet, unlike the four in pigs. 

The Mayans kept collections of peccaries, back in the day; a group that is collectively known as a squadron, and they do indeed have the sort of fluffy aloofness of an old Tommy. ¹

2. They’re hairy

Punk pigs might be a better name for them, as these ballerina-footed, porcine critters are covered in long hair, sometimes up to 22 cm long around the head. The long, dainty legs are well adapted for running and they flee from trouble pretty well in most cases. 

But the hairs work as a size bluff, like the hackles of a dog, and probably help with olfactory communication, too, which is how they get the nickname skunk pig in the first place. 

There’s a gland on their backs that releases a musky stank and this is often rubbed on things to stake a claim. ²

3. They were thought to be extinct

Local people in the Gran Chaco region talked of three kinds of peccary, including two that were known to science and a third, larger species.

In 1930, this species was formally recorded, but only from fossils, as there was no known living population to write about. 

It wasn’t until 1972, that the species, which had until then been considered extinct, was spotted in the wild. The reason for their elusiveness comes from their ability to tolerate extreme environments that most humans don’t want to go near. ³

4. They’re tough

Like the rest of their suborder, peccaries are hard as nails. They’ll eat anything and live anywhere, and this gives them an advantage over the competition.

Of course, fruit and roots are going to be the most popular sources of calories, but they will consume raw soil for minerals and even eat rotting meat for the good dose of protein where it’s available. 

These peccaries tolerate extremely dry regions where there isn’t much water, so munching on cactuses provides valuable hydration and they’ll roll the spiky plants on the ground to knock off the majority of thorns first. 

They wander in family groups, with ranges of over 1000 hectares, which they defend against other clans. They’ll mark the boundaries with their scent and chatter to each other using various grunts, woofs, and chitters.^{4 5}

5. Spirit masters of the forest

Native peoples referred to this species as the spirit masters of the forest, which professes some level of respect for the animals they ate that isn’t typically granted in modern cultures. 

Of course, this respect didn’t get in the way of a tasty meal, and the peccaries are still hunted for meat, something which was ecologically balanced by the limiting factor of them being so isolated and hard to catch. 

But with modernisation, this isolation is no longer protecting the peccaries. 

6. They’re no longer isolated

Modern farming practices are finally encroaching on the most desolate and remotest of refuges for animals, and this is wreaking havoc on the Chacoan peccary populations. But it’s not just a physical attack, it’s also a biological one. 

Humans and suines are so genetically similar that it takes only a small amount of tweaking to engineer a pig heart that works in humans – at least for a few weeks. This overlap in genetics is not only fascinating but dangerous and is why diseases like swine flu can hop over to humans so easily.

But it goes both ways; the more humans destroy isolated habitats, the more such transmissions occur, and diseases can hop into peccary communities too.

The Chacoan peccary lives in such a dry and desolate place that humans have only recently been able to encroach on their territory, and this isolation has prevented the peccaries from gaining any sort of immunity to the diseases that are being brought in. 

Habitat fragmentation and loss are the usual perpetrators of species decline, and in this case, their ecosystems are being rapidly converted into ranches.

More people mean more hunting pressure, and it means more disease, either directly from humans or from their livestock or the feral dogs that come with them. 

This incredible suine is now endangered, having lost over half of its population over just three generations.  

Chacoan Peccary Fact-File Summary

Scientific Classification

1. Jaime Gongora (2017), “Evolutionary Relationships and Taxonomy of Suidae and Tayassuidae”, Cambridge University Press.
2. después de la tormenta. (2018), “Tagua ( Catagonus wagneri ) , Chacoan peccary in the wild”, YouTube.
3. “Catagonus wagneri”, Ultimate Ungulate.
4. “Chacoan Peccary”, World Land Trust.
5. “Chacoan Peccary (Catagonus wagneri) Fact Sheet: Behavior & Ecology”, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library.