Friday, December 7, 2012

වල් ඌරා[Wal Ura]/Indian Wild Boar/Wild Pig (Sus Scrofa)

Wild boar is distributed throughout the island wherever dry zone scrub lands or wet zone forests provides it with enough cover, from coastal lowlands to the higher hills. It occurs in herds sometime up to around 30 or more individuals in dry zone national parks while rather small herds or solitary animals occurs in wet zone forests. It is an omnivorous mammal and scavenge on carcasses of dead animals, kill and eat snakes, worms, eggs and young of ground-nesting birds and also feeds on fallen fruits and uprooted rhizomes etc. It causes lot of damages to the chena cultivation, paddy fields, home gardens and other plantations during its night time forays in search of food. Wild boar is a prolific animal and breeds at least twice annually and W.W.A. Phillips noted that it is always the last of the larger mammals to be ousted from a district where the forest is being opened up (Phillips W.W.A, 1984).  Generally the herds are composed of sows with their young of all ages and the older adult males live solitary or form small parties on their own and join the herds of females only to the mating. They feed usually early morning and late afternoon while lying up in a shade during heat hours of the day. It also feeds during night. Leopards, crocodiles and pythons can be considered as its enemies other than Man. Leopards mostly take young piglets whenever the opportunity occurs and there are instances of desperate fights between leopard and old boars sometimes end up with leopard being killed. 


  1. Where were you hiding when you take the photo?

  2. Actually I was standing few meters away from it when taking this at Palatupana entrance of Yala national park where there are some wild boars those used to wandering among people probably for scavenging on garbage.