Wallowing like a Hog

[Shyamala Kumar]

Tadoba wild boars like those in Corbett seemed huge and well fed unlike their much smaller cousins in the south.They are seen in the core areas of the forest only when the Jamun trees shed their luscious fruit covering the ground like a purple blanket. Rest of the year they are in the buffer zones carrying out regular raids into the field surrounding the forest Nikon 7100+30mm F/7.1 +1.4 tc ISO400 1/600s Tadoba evening Jan 2015.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Well built fellow. It is nice that the wild boar is in light and the eye contact is nice. It is trying to ascertain if there is any danger so that it can either continue with its wallowing or scoot off into the bush. The size of the boar with respect to the image size is fine. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice image of this species which has learned to adapt and survive.
TFS
Roopak

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Massive, may be 450-500 pounder. I have seen impressive boars in Kanha with large tushes compared to those seen in other jungles. Nice to see clearly the cartilage-reinfoced snout. This particular specimen can boast of thick and luxuriant dorsal ridge of bristles. The hairs are not erect but slant slightly backwards. No danger foreseen.
Thanks for sharing. SaktiWild

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

When you have talked about 'wallowing'; I thought that I should refer to what our Great Teacher has observed and documented:

" In the Tadoba N.P., cattle egrets followed the pig coming to lakeside in the evening. In the Periyar Sanctuary, common mynahs were seen accompanying the pig and riding on the back.

Pigs are very fond of wallowing but differ from other animals that like to wallow (buffalo, elephant, sambar) in that they like some shallow water over the mire, not merely mire for that purpose. Once I saw a very big boar lying in 3-inch deep water in a puddle on a forest road, soon after heavy rain, rolling over and squirming about so violently that at first I thought the animal has been seized with a fit."

-M. Krishnan

# Indebtedness: Bombay Natural History Society 1975

[Shyamala Kumar]

Thanks Sabyasachi and Roopak for your valuable feed back.Saktipadaji thank you for the interesting reference to Mr Krishnan`s observation.In this instance too the wild boar was also violently splashing and squirming around in a very shallow puddle.Our presence however curtailed some of his exuberance and within minutes he had made himself scarce as Sabyasachi had predicted.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Dada,
Thnaks for posting Shri M. Krishnan's notes. I think in 2012, when we were in Nagarhole, the morning rains had created many puddles on the dirt tracks. The sky was overcast and the light levels were low. I saw a medium sized boar sleeping in one puddle on the road. I thought the driver would notice and hence didn't utter a word. However, the driver saw it in the last moment and braked hard. The fellow got frightened and ran away. The driver then turned his head towards me in astonishment to acknowledge that he had not seen the boar.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Debasis Bose]

A huge specimen, nicely captured. Boars are genetically related to animals such as hippos and whales. The wallowing behavior and the desire to be in shallow, murky water could have been a step to the evolution of whales and other marine mammals from land-dwelling mammals.

[Subhash Shrivastava]

the boar is looking muscular and very alphalike.
Sakti sir, thanks for sharing such a subtle behavioral traits. we are lucky to get the insights what otherwise may have eluded us for the whole life, hadn't it been for this forum. thanks again.

Shyamala m'am. i have a feeling that i may have gone to the same spot in the buffer some time after this image, as i saw a similar boar besides the waterhole covered in mud. thanks for sharing.