Wild boars are often mistaken for their popular Hollywood cousins, the warthogs. Pumba, the warthog from the Lion King, ate worms and fruits and even considered eating a lion cub, thinking it was dead. The diet variety is quite accurate and shared by wild boars, affirming the incredible strength of their teeth. This article dives into features of the strong wild boar teeth.
Needle Teeth: Piglet Teeth
Wild boar piglets are born with sharp incisor teeth. For domesticated piglets, owners often cut off the needle teeth to prevent injuries amongst the litter. Since their main food source is the sow’s milk, they do not use their teeth to chew, but to fight their siblings for their mother’s teats. As the piglets mature, they are weaned from their mother and search out other food sources. Other teeth begin to grow around this time, providing the little boars with the tools to survive on more solid foods. After about a year, all baby teeth would have been replaced by adult teeth.
Diphyodont Teeth
Like most pig species, wild boars have diphyodont teeth, which means they develop two types of teeth throughout their lives. This is identical to humans, who spur temporary teeth during childhood and shed those for permanent teeth as they grow older. These teeth include the incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. Young wild boars have incisors, canines, and premolars as baby teeth. As they mature, they grow molars and can eat harder foods.
How Many Teeth Does A Wild Boar Have?
Adult wild boars have 44 teeth, while younger boars have 28. An adult wild boar has three incisors, a canine, four premolars, and three molars on either side of their upper and lower jaws. Listed below are the four types of wild boar teeth.
Incisors
Incisors are the foremost teeth in the mouth, often placed in the middle of the upper and lower rows of teeth. Wild boars have 12 incisors, as both baby and adults boars.
Canines or Tusks
A major reason wild boars are feared besides their rugged outlook is their long, curved, and protruding canines, also known as tusks. These teeth are also quite sharp, with the upper tusks often used to sharpen the lower two. Wild boars grow their tusks throughout their lives, and these large teeth can sometimes curve back towards the boars’ heads. According to research, tusks are more easily repaired than the other teeth types because they have more formative tissue about their roots and a rich blood supply.
Premolar
Premolars are the set of low crown teeth found between the canines and molar teeth in wild boars. Adult boars have 16 premolar teeth, four on either side of the upper and lower jaws. In younger boars, there are only 12.
Molar
Adult boars have 12 molar teeth. Molars are low ridges, uneven and larger surfaces compared to the other teeth. These features allow them to be used for crushing food. Baby boars do not develop molar teeth until they are four months old.
What Do Wild Boars Use Their Teeth For?
Wild boars are omnivores with various teeth that can tear, chew, and crush. Their canines are one of their most widely used teeth. Wild boars use their teeth to hunt prey, mark their territory, and fight off competition during mating season.
Hunting
Wild boars eat almost anything around them, including plants, nuts, and even smaller animals. They hunt diurnally and nocturnally, depending on their environment. Wild boars are bold attackers who charge at their prey, looking to injure them with their teeth. They also have teeth strong enough to tear through flesh. Some of the animals that are hunted by these large pigs are monkeys, snakes, and deer.
Marking Territory
Wild boars reside in many habitats and are even capable of swimming. While sows live in groups that consist of sows and their young called sounders, male wild boars are solitary. Sometimes, males have to fight off other males or animals for food. According to DPI, wild boars mark territories to ward off competition. This is a proactive measure done by cutting a mark on tree bark with their teeth. The wild boar does this on its hind legs, thus making its size apparent.
Fighting Off Competition During Mating Season
According to reports, wild boar mating season occurs during winter, from December to January. The solitary males search for sows who are often in the company of other sows and young pigs. However, there is always a high probability that another male is nearby. To decide who has a go at the females, the two boars fight using their canines.
Do Wild Boars Bite Humans?
Wild boars bite humans. However, this is more common with sows than with male boars. Males are larger than females and have longer tusks with which they can attack humans. Attacks from males are often in the form of tears and slashes. According to the Texas Natural Resources Institute, wild boars will attack humans if startled, cornered, wounded, or when protecting their young. An aggressive wild boar would charge at a human with its canines, and once it makes a hit, it retreats and charges again if the human is still moving. Attacks on humans by wild boars are rare. They often occur during the mating season in the winter, and this is the time of the year with the fewest amount of hunting activity. However, wild boars are often aggressive to other male boars during the rut (mating season) and might also be towards a human, especially one that is hunting it. Based on a news account, wild boars have attacked humans even in civilized areas, like Rome, Italy. Thus, caution must be exercised when wild boars are encountered. After an attack from a wild boar, it is advisable to see a doctor as soon as possible, as these wild hogs carry a lot of bacteria and diseases.
Up Next:
Pig Teeth: Everything You Need to Know Wild Boar vs. Pig: What are the Differences? What Do Boars Eat? Discover the 10 Largest Pigs in the World
