Creature Feature: The Pigs Dig It!

Think pigs are dirty, crude creatures with an overrated intelligence?  Then you have to watch this video of some critically endangered Philippine pigs named Visayan Warty pigs (Sus cebifrons) using a tool to dig! Previous to this recorded behavior in a Paris zoo, only primates and some birds were thought to be intelligent enough to use a tool in foraging for food.  A study published in Mammalian Biology last month, details how a family of Visayan pigs at the Ménagerie, Jardin de Plants use pieces of tree bark in their nest building activities.  Priscillia the pig also uses it to dig for edibles as this video proves.   The behavior is thought to be learned, and Priscilla is the only one adept enough to use it effectively as a digging tool, but her daughters Beatrice and Antonia mimic her behavior with varying results.  The male, Billie, is slower to catch on. (So what else is new?)

Priscilla and Billie were born in captivity in 2007 and 2008, their offspring were born in 2012.  The menagerie is part of a network of European zoos that breeds the pigs.  In 2015 there were about 1300 Visayan warty pigs in captivity. The species is under dire threat of extinction in its home islands.  Hunting for meat and skins has exterminated the species on four Visayan islands. The remaining population is limited to Panay and Negros.