Colours of Wildlife: Kubanochoerus, the Giant Tricorn Pig
Created | Updated May 22, 2016
Kubanochoerus, the Giant Tricorn Pig
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
Having featured a tiny member of the pork family recently, let me now introduce you to a giant! This is Kubanochoerus gigas, which sadly is not with us any more. A few species of Kubanochoerus are recognized; they lived in Asia and Europe from about 15 to 7 million years ago. Similar fossils from Africa may belong to the same genus, or not. Overall they were therefore quite widespread, and existed for a decent amount of time.
The Giant Tricorn Pig
The most prominent and weirdest feature of Kubanochoerus was its horn! This was a bony projection extending from the centre of its forehead. Though not very long, this horn was still something entirely unique (as far as we know at present) in the pig family. This would have been a unicorn pig if this was its only horn, but it also had a pair of smaller horns, one right over each of its eyebrows! These were just small pointy projections, though. Still, it should properly be called a tricorn.
What did a pig do with horns? These may have been just for show. As far as we know at present, this horn wasn't covered in a hard, sharp-tipped, horny sheath as in antelopes. It was not good for stabbing but might have been used between males (if, as we suspect, only the males had them) for shoving each other around during contests for territory or mates.
Like other pigs, Kubanochoerus also had long and sharp 'tusks' or upper and lower canine teeth. The upper canines curved slightly upwards, the lower canines fitting snug against them. These were its truly lethal weapons. It would perhaps have been less used against competing pigs than against carnivores, of which there were a great variety of big ones back in the Miocene.
Kubanochoerus was big: it had rather long legs compared to other pigs, and stood about 1.2 m/4' at the shoulder – the size of a small pony. Its bodyweight probably reached or exceeded about 500 kg/1100 lbs. This was much larger than the largest modern wild pig, the Giant Forest Hog. Today, there are huge domesticated pigs, but they owe their bulk to large amounts of body fat. A few feral descendants of domestic pigs have become enormous. There were a few other prehistoric pigs, though, that were even larger!
Generally these large pigs occurred in more open habitats than the smaller species. Kubanochoerus probably inhabited well-developed open woodlands, or a mosaic of forest and grassy savannah. It probably was omnivorous (eating plant as well as animal foods) like most modern pigs. It was, however, not as advanced as modern pigs in the musculature that operated its muzzle, and therefore was probably not as good at using its snout to root in the soil.
Prehistoric Porkers
Today the pig family contains about ten or twelve species, depending on how many of the Asian wild pigs are classified. Like most things, the pigs were much more diverse in the past. They are actually an ancient group, first showing up in the Late Eocene, about 30-40 million years ago. The first pigs were already very pig-like. It is possible that the group evolved in Asia, but rapidly spread to Europe and to Africa. Pigs diversified into many sizes, from as little as a single kg/2.2 lbs to probably close to a ton in the largest species. They inhabited everything from dense forests to open grasslands and semi-deserts. The upper tusks became long and widely-flaring in many species; in some, the skulls also became decorated with bosses and flanges of bone. True pigs never appeared to reach North and South America, where they were replaced by the pig-like peccaries. These were already distinct from the pigs at a very early period, but seems to not have been quite as diverse – even though many fossil species are known. I'll feature peccaries here soon.
