Desert Warthog

About the Desert Warthog

The desert warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus) is a mammalian, artiodactyl-ungulate species of the pig and swine family (Suidae) native to the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. Two subspecies have been named: the Cape warthog (P. a. aethiopicus), which became extinct around 1865, had once inhabited South Africa, while the extant Somali warthog (P. a. delamerei) is largely found in Kenya and Somalia, some areas of Ethiopia, and potentially still inhabits parts of Djibouti and Eritrea.

Fossils have been found from the Holocene epoch showing that two divergent lines of warthogs (Phacochoerus spp.) were in existence thousands of years ago. The ancestors of the present-day common warthog (P. africanus) had a different number of incisors from the ancestors of the desert warthog (P. aethiopicus) line. During the late 19th century, P. aethiopicus became extinct in South Africa. Subsequently, study of mDNA and morphological analysis has shown that the East African population of warthogs, previously thought to be a variant of the common warthog, are, in fact, surviving members of the putatively extinct P. aethiopicus.

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