Wee weird warthogs

Warthogs (Phacochoerus africanus).
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

I'm sorry I haven't posted recently; I've been going through a bit of a stressful patch.

However, outside in my front garden, there's a family that's clearly not stressed.
You could be forgiven for thinking they're feeling pious, because the two adults are down on their knees.

But they aren't facing Mecca.

Yes, you guessed it, they're warthogs.
Now I realise that you know all about warthogs. They trot past as non-speaking extras in every African wildlife documentary ever made.
Warthogs are passé.

But believe me, warthogs are weird. Pigs that live down burrows? Rabbits, wombats, prairie dogs – these are the critters that pop up out of holes. But pigs? And when tooth-and-claw threatens, warthogs don't just hurtle headlong down their holes like any self-respecting burrow-dweller. No, they skid to a halt at the tunnel mouth, whirl around (as much as anything pig-shaped can whirl) and reverse down backwards – now that's just perverse.  

When your the only pig bizarre enough to specialise in grazing, why not go the whole hog and gad about on your knees. This is said to give more leverage for snouting up grass roots, but I reckon they're trying to garner sympathy by looking obsequious. And it's premeditated: their gnarly knee calluses are present in the womb.
Photo by Brian Gratwicke.

But the reason I've been lured into writing about my common-or-garden warthogs is because, over the last couple of weeks, there's suddenly a whole lot more of them. Out in my garden - along with Mum and Aunt Mabel - are five little hoglets, currently leaping, spinning in the air and madly snout-jousting with one another. I've never figured out why warthog piglets are so appealing. I mean they're semi-bald and always look so... well, earnest. I guess it's partly because they're so tiny next to Mum (only 1% of her weight at birth), and they trot along in single file, tails stuck up and Mohican hairdos billowing in the breeze.

I first noticed something untoward in the world of hogs about two months ago. I pass several families (called sounders) on my way to the mongooses each day and, back then, all the mums suddenly disappeared. This set me in a panic because, around here, warthogs are popular guests at Saturday night's braai/barbie. But once I'd seen that last year's youngsters were pottering about normally, despite the lack of maternal care, I regained my composure and realised what was happening. You see when a mother-to-be's happy day arrives, she deserts her teenaged kids and retreats down a burrow. Here she'll stay, tending her tiny newborns, for at least a week. Even after she emerges, she'll still go hungry for several weeks, guarding her burrow-bound piglets and suckling them at 40 minute intervals.

Who wouldn't stay underground, if they looked like this? Warthog piglets don't leave their hole until 6-7 weeks old.
Photo by Martin Heigan.

Mother warthogs defend their piglets. That doesn't sound scary, does it. But then it fails to evoke the piglets' blood-curdling squeals, the dreadful roaring bellows and grunts of a charging sow or the hysterical yelping of an injured dog.

Maybe I need to go back a step. The summer before last I was letting my two huskies gallivant in the bush at the local mine when they flushed a young warthog. The little fellow took one look at the dogs and began hollering for Mum. His piercing 'I'm-being-torn-apart' screams were so shocking that Wizard and I stood transfixed, but Magic took off after the critter. Suddenly a large grey shape erupted from the bushes. Roaring and growling, Mother Warthog hurtled straight toward Wizard. I couldn't see what was happening because of the undergrowth but my heart contracted as a volley of dreadful yelping arose. Warthogs have a penchant for disembowelling dogs; their upper tusks can reach 60 cm (23") in length and the lower ones are razor-edged (honed by the upper tusks whenever the warthog chews).

Looking mean. The piglet's white cheek fur is thought to give an illusion of tusks (technically they're called tushes, not tusks, because they're canine teeth not incisors).
Photo posted on Flickr by Piglicker.

Straining to catch sight of Wizard, who - still yelping pitifully – was fleeing through the undergrowth, I suddenly realised that Mum was now charging straight at me. This didn't alarm me at first because warthogs often appear to be attacking you when they're actually just fleeing to a burrow behind you. I'd been fooled before. I was much more worried about Wizard. But as the massive creature hurtled down the hill toward me (mother warthogs weigh in at around 65 kg/143 lbs), I began to think, 'Surely she's not going to attack me too?' I'd never heard of warthogs disembowelling people. As she got closer and closer, I wondered, in a panicky sort of way, whether it was possible to play toreador with a pig. By that stage, of course, I really had no other option. Fortunately, when she was just one metre (3 ft) away from me, and I was getting ready to leap, she swerved sideways, dashing past in a flurry of dust.

Meanwhile, the piglet had given Magic the slip by squeezing under a fence, and both dogs were standing together on the track. Wizard, whimpering constantly, was trembling from head to foot, and his white fur was splashed liberally with scarlet. Heart in mouth, I rushed up to assess the damage. One of the warthog's tusks had speared his thigh, leaving behind a deep stab wound. But much worse, the other one had pierced into his groin and there was blood everywhere. Only after I'd flushed out the wound did I realise how lucky we'd been. The tusk had penetrated more than 20 cm (8"), but it had gouged up between the skin of his thigh and abdomen, slicing - but not actually penetrating - the abdomen wall. Although the wound was not life-threatening, it still took many painful weeks to heal.

Of course even as I write this, Wizard and Magic are racing up and down the fence, desperately eager to get out and chase those tempting little piglets. Oh, aren't dogs a blessing!

Pigging out. Unlike domestic pigs, warthog piglets don't own and defend a particular teat. They're so into sharing that females will suckle one another's kids. But milk-drinking is a frantic business: once flowing, the supply lasts only one minute.
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

Meet a mongoose: Baloo

One of the greatest joys of my research is getting to know individual animals, discovering their personalities and sharing in the day-to-day excitement of their lives. I thought I'd try to share this pleasure with you by introducing you to some of my special mongooses.

Today's 'focal animal' is Baloo.

When you visit Bugbears, it won't take you long to notice Baloo. A sleek youngster with an intense expression and greenish eyes (mongooses' eyes grow browner as they age), he'll come dashing up to stand by your feet. For a moment he'll stare intently into your eyes and then he'll race off, jinking past the more sedate members of the group. Baloo never walks when he can run. He's bursting with nervous energy and he always seems to be exuberantly enjoying life.

Baloo at four months of age.

Baloo was born last October just before I left for a holiday in Kanha National Park, India. This tropical forest was the setting for Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, so the choice of Baloo's name was obvious. In hindsight, I couldn't have chosen better because the little mongoose's personality bears a remarkable resemblance to that of the insouciant bear in Walt Disney's animated version (although I admit he doesn't sing or juggle mangos).

The drama in Baloo's life began early.

Iorek gave birth to Baloo's litter in a large termite mound overlooking the creek. Newborn pups (4 to 6 in a litter) are blind and helpless, and they normally spend their first few weeks hidden away in the depths of the mound. They're highly sought after by numerous predators so someone stays behind to guard them whenever the group goes off foraging. Babysitting is a hungry and dangerous job, so the mongooses take turns, normally for half a day at a time. If a predator turns up at the mound, the babysitter, with teeth bared and fur erect, blocks the entrance with its body and snaps, spits and growls ferociously. Unfortunately, some predators can't be deterred, and when the babysitter's own life is threatened (and it's not unusual for babysitters to be killed), it will snatch up one of the pups and make a run for it.

This is what happened to Bugbear's litter. I don't know which predator ate his siblings, but it was Baloo that drew the lucky straw.

 Mongoose pups (these are 3.5 weeks old) depend on the group for protection. Alone, they're an easy snack for raptors, snakes and monitors, wild cats, jackals, civets, honey badgers and even neighbouring mongoose groups.

Life as an 'only pup' comes with mixed blessings.

On the up-side, you never go hungry.

In the true spirit of 'all for one and one for all', subordinate female mongooses often produce milk to help feed the dominant female's pups. And dwarf mongooses don't have to get pregnant to do this, a trait unique among wild mammals. Female group members frequently undergo 'pseudo-pregnancy' in which they experience the physiological changes of pregnancy (including milk production) even though they haven't actually conceived. So Baloo not only got to guzzle a whole litter's worth of milk from his mum, but could then totter across and snack from Cricket and Rupert as well. (No, Rupert isn't male; even dwarf mongooses aren't that good. What can I say? Pups are difficult to sex.). Anyway, Baloo had a bonanza, and he grew so fat and roly-poly that I wondered how his stumpy legs could support him.

On the down-side, 'only pups' don't get to lie in bed all day. Babysitting isn't only dangerous, it's energetically costly. For example, in meerkats (who have a very similar social system), babysitters can lose up to 11% of their body weight during the four-week pup-minding period. Understandably, Bugbears was hesitant to invest such a lot in just a single pup. Their solution? They carried Baloo with them wherever they went.

Mongoose carrying a pup (sorry for lousy quality).

Every day the tiny pup, bumbling about with his eyes barely open, was dragged off through thorn thickets and bumped over rocks. His neck fur was constantly matted with saliva and he looked like he had mange from all the scrapes and scratches. Whenever the group settled to forage, they'd stow Baloo beneath a rock or shove him into a rotting log, before wandering off to search for food nearby. Of course, mongooses are highly attuned to pup distress calls, and they'll come at gallop for the slightest peep, but Baloo got so used to being left alone, he never cried out (as pups normally do) even when the group moved far away. I feared that this would prove fatal. Whenever the group moved on, I'd hold my breath: would they remember Baloo? Often they'd move quite a long way before someone, usually one of the females, would suddenly stop in her tracks and dash back to snatch him up. I was convinced, each time I visited the group, that I'd find him missing; it seemed inevitable that a predator would find him in his makeshift shelters, or the group would - one day - leave him behind.

But I was wrong. Despite his many abrasions, Baloo thrived. Having no littermates to play with could have been a hardship, but not for Baloo. Leaping on the adults, he'd drape his body across their shoulders, biting on their ears, or pounce on their heads, to hang by his teeth from their noses (watching it made my eyes water).

Now Baloo is six months old, and he's slimmed down a lot (he has to catch his own food!). However, I think his early initiation into group life has given him his bouncy self-assurance and a great enthusiasm for everything and anything that's going on.