Common Warthog (Phacochoerus africanus)

Common Warthog overview

The common warthog is a wild pig of the African savanna, recognizable by its flat, shovel-shaped head, upward-curving tusks and the wart-like pads of thick skin on its face. Those pads protect boars when they fight. The body is sparsely haired and gray, with a mane down the spine and a thin tufted tail held straight up like an antenna when the animal runs. Warthogs are the only pigs adapted to grazing in open, dry country. They live in family groups called sounders, are active by day, and shelter at night in burrows, usually ones abandoned by aardvarks.

How Long Do Common Warthogs Live?

Common warthogs live 7–11 years on average in the wild, with some reaching about 15, and up to 18 years or so in zoos. Piglets suffer heavy losses to predators and cold, and often fewer than half survive their first year. Lions, leopards, hyenas, wild dogs and crocodiles hunt adults.

How Much Does a Common Warthog Weigh?

Adult common warthogs weigh 45–150 kg (100–330 lb). Sows weigh 45–75 kg, while boars are noticeably bigger at 60–150 kg. Despite the large head and tusks, warthogs are lighter than many wild boar and far lighter than the giant forest hog.

How Tall Is a Common Warthog?

A common warthog stands 64–85 cm (25–33 in) tall at the shoulder, with a head-and-body length of 0.9–1.5 m. The upper tusks curve up and out and can exceed 25 cm in boars, while the shorter lower tusks are kept razor sharp by rubbing against the upper pair.

How Fast Can a Common Warthog Run?

Warthogs can run at up to 48 km/h (30 mph). They flee with the tail held upright and usually head for a burrow, which they enter backward so their tusks face any predator that follows. A warthog that cannot reach cover will turn and fight.

How Long Is a Common Warthog Pregnant?

A warthog sow is pregnant for five to six months, about 170 days. She leaves her group to give birth in a burrow, typically to two to four piglets, though litters of up to eight occur. Piglets stay underground for their first weeks and are weaned at around six months.

What Do Common Warthogs Eat?

Warthogs are omnivores, but grass makes up most of what they eat. They graze kneeling on their padded wrists and use the snout and tusks to dig up roots, bulbs and rhizomes in the dry season. Fruit, bark, insects, eggs and carrion are eaten occasionally.

Diet type: omnivore. Mostly grasses, plus roots, bulbs and rhizomes dug up with the snout, fallen fruit, berries and bark; warthogs also occasionally eat insects, eggs and carrion.

Where Do Common Warthogs Live?

Common warthogs live in savannas, grasslands and open woodlands across sub-Saharan Africa. They avoid rainforest, dense bush and true desert, and need burrows for shelter from predators and temperature extremes, because they have little fur or body fat.

Are Common Warthogs Endangered?

The common warthog is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It remains widespread and common, although the overall population is thought to be decreasing because of hunting for meat, drought and habitat loss, and it has disappeared from some densely settled areas.

Least Concern

Common Warthog fun facts

• Warthogs back into their burrows so that any predator following them meets a face full of tusks.
• The facial warts are not warts at all but pads of thickened skin and tissue that cushion blows when boars fight.
• Warthogs kneel on calloused front wrists to graze, and the pads are already present on piglets before birth.
• They rarely dig their own dens, relying mostly on old aardvark burrows.
• Banded mongooses and oxpeckers have been seen picking ticks off warthogs, which sometimes lie down to be groomed.

Common Warthog FAQ

Related animals

All mammals