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BABIRUSA (" pig-deer ")

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 96 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BABIRUSA (" See also:pig-See also:deer ") , the See also:Malay name of the See also:wild See also:swine of See also:Celebes and See also:Buru, which has been adopted in See also:zoology as the scientific designation of this remarkable See also:animal (the only representative of its genus), in the See also:form of Babirusa alfurus. The skin is nearly naked, and very rough and rugged. The See also:total number of See also:teeth is 34, with the See also:formula i.3. c.. p.. m.*. The molars, and more especially the last, are smaller and simpler than in the pigs of the genus See also:Sus, but the peculiarity of this genus is the extraordinary development of the canines, or tusks, of the male. These teeth are ever-growing, See also:long, slender and curved, and without See also:enamel. Those of the upper See also:jaw are directed upwards from their bases, so that they never enter the mouth, but See also:pierce the skin of the See also:face, thus resembling horns rather than teeth; they See also:curve backwards, downwards, and finally often forwards again, almost or quite touching the forehead. Dr A. R. See also:Wallace remarks that " it is difficult to understand what can be the use of these See also:horn-like teeth. Some of the old writers supposed that they served as hooks by which the creature could See also:rest itshead on a See also:branch. But the way in which they usually diverge just over and in front of the See also:eye has suggested the more probable See also:idea, that they serve to guard these See also:organs from thorns and spines while See also:hunting for fallen fruits among the tangled thickets of rattans and other spiny See also:plants. Even this, however, is not satisfactory, for the See also:female, who must seek her See also:food in the same way, does not possess them.

I should be inclined to believe rather that these tusks were once useful, and were then worn Old Male Babirusa (Babirusa alfurus). down as fast as they See also:

grew, but that changed conditions of See also:life have rendered them unnecessary, and they now develop into a monstrous form, just as the incisors of the See also:beaver and See also:rabbit will go on growing if the opposite teeth do not See also:wear them away. In old animals they reach an enormous eize, and are generally broken off as if by fighting." On this latter view we may regard the tusks of the male babirusa as examples of redundant development, analogous to that of the single pair of See also:lower teeth in some of the beaked whales. Unlike See also:ordinary wild pigs, the babirusa produces uniformly coloured See also:young. (See SwINE.) (R.

End of Article: BABIRUSA (" pig-deer ")

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