Pets Everywhere

We have discussed the origins of a large number of what are now very popular pets. We have looked at the origins of dogs, cats, rabbits, reptiles, fish, horses, turtles, and a lot of other animals. One group we have not looked at that has, at least recently, been more regularly miniaturized and taken from the farm to the living room in many areas: the domestic pig. Belonging to the family Suidae, the domesticated pig has a complicated and long lineage. The domesticated pig is in the genus Sus, a group of animals ranging back to the Miocene, though pigs of the family Suidae are certainly a considerable deal older, dating back to the Oligocene.

Picking pigs to discuss is actually a little more difficult than one mine imagine; there are variable sources of information on fossil pigs and there is actually a lot less information, in total, on fossil pigs than one might imagine as well. Many fossil pigs are known entirely from their teeth and a number are known from their skulls and teeth together. Regardless of how much is known of each fossil pig, there is not a great deal written about any fossil pigs online. There are a number of articles on Enteldonts, but these large artiodactyls are not actually a group of pigs. One pig that has a small internet presence, and we can use as a model for talking about pigs at large, is Strozzi's Pig (Sus strozzi). This pig was very porcine, pig-like, and, as is the case in many wild suids, Strozzi's Pig looked very much like a wild boar or a warthog. Strozzi's Pig was a Mediterranean animal, distantly related to the suids of Africa and closely related to its counterparts from Europe and Asia, which contributed to the displacement and eventual extinction of Strozzi's Pig.