Wild Boar (with Giant Boar and Warthog)

Boars are wild swine, the bristled ancestors of the farmyard hog and far meaner of temper. Stocky and low-slung, they carry short coarse-haired bodies, blunt snouts for rooting, and curving tusks that can open a man's leg. The common wild boar runs in family sounders; the giant boar is a shoulder-high prehistoric brute of much greater bulk; the warthog is a tropical cousin that fights with two slashing tusks. All are omnivores that will eat nearly anything, and all share a stubborn ferocity, fighting on through wounds that would drop other beasts before finally collapsing. They are valued game, yielding meat, lard and tough hide, though raw boar flesh carries a parasite that sickens the careless cook.