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In addition to the question of who the second master brother is, let's take a look at where this type of population comes from
Where did the ancestors of pigs come from?
All from Gao Laozhuang? Asia to be precise
From the classification point of view, all pigs belong to the pig family, and this family first appeared in Asia during the Oligocene period 30 million years ago, so Asia is the home of pigs.
Fossil skulls from early swine families, image from Wikipedia
With a well-developed sense of smell, agile speed, strong defense, strong reproductive ability and omnivorous, pigs have gained strong resilience and can survive in different environments. By the Miocene, the family had spread rapidly out of Asia and rapidly to Europe and Africa, becoming the most common mammal in the Old World.
The success of an animal group is judged not only by its wide distribution and abundance, but also by the fact that there are several species of enormous size, and swines are certainly no exception. The most famous prehistoric giant pig is the kubanochoeres known as the "unicorn".
Asia's prehistoric giant pig, the Cuban pig
The fossil of the Kuban pig was first found in Gansu, China, and later found in the Kuban region of the Caucasus of the former Soviet Union, so it was named the Kuban pig. The Kuban pig is widely distributed and has many species, the largest of which is the kubanochoeres gigas. The big Kuban pig is more than 2.5 meters long, more than 1.2 meters tall on the shoulders, and weighs between 500 and 850 kilograms, almost the size of a rhinoceros.
The skeleton of the Cuban pig in the Shanghai Museum of Natural History
Kuban Pig Restoration By Maurizio Anton
The Great Kuban pig was similar in appearance to today's pigs, with long heads, pig noses, large fangs, strong bodies and strong limbs. Unlike today's pigs, there is a "horn" above the eyes of the Kuban pig, which is actually a bony protrusion above the orbit at the midline of the skull. It is precisely because of the "horns" on the head that the Kuban pig has the nickname of unicorn.
What is the use of the "horns" on the head of the Cuban pig? Paleontologists speculate that male Kuban pigs may fight with "horns" to gain dominance and mating rights.
Fossil skull of a Kuban pig, note the horns on the top of the head, image from: Wikipedia
The fossils of the Great Kuban pig are mainly produced in Gansu, belonging to the shovel-toothed elephant fauna, and the animals that live with it include the shovel-toothed elephant, the incarcerated elephant, the angel horse, the half-dog, the half-bear, the Tunggur hyena, etc., with an era of 15 million to 12 million years ago in the Miocene. Despite their sheer size, the Great Kuban pigs still form groups to fight carnivores like half-dogs and half-bears.
The Great Kuban pig is the most famous prehistoric giant pig that has ever appeared in Asia, and there are also big guys in the African pig family, which is the Notochoerus.
Africa's prehistoric giant pig, the giant pig
The giant-backed pig looks a bit like an enlarged version of the warthog, with a strong body, short limbs, and long, curled fangs in its mouth. The body length of the pig is about 2 meters, the shoulder height is more than 1 meter, and the weight is about 500 kilograms.
Comparison of body sizes of warthogs (left), giant warthogs (center) and giant-backed pigs (right).
The giant pig lived during the Miocene to the Pliocene, and lived in Uganda and Ethiopia in eastern Africa. The age and location of the pig overlaps with that of our ancestors Australopithecus, Noh and Homo erectus, and it seems that our ancestors once saw this huge pig and may even be able to eat pork. Hunting giant pigs is very dangerous, these fierce guys are very aggressive, and they move in groups, even large predators have to fear them for three points.
In the world where the giant-backed pig lives, you can see the dinosaur (top right) and two ancient humans (center) walking with tools, the picture is from alamy.com
Introduced the Kuban pig and the Shuo pig, is there anything missing? I know you're going to say pig, beast, pig, and so on. These "giant pigs" belong to the famous family Entelodontidae, but have now been renamed the family Lycaenidae. The family Pig family does not belong to the pig family, they are more distantly related to the pig family, but are closer to hippos and cetaceans.
A reconstruction of the ancient giant pig, can you think of it as a relative of hippos and cetaceans? Image from Wikipedia
It is called "giant pig", but is not a pig of the family Pig family
The family lived between 37 million and 16 million years ago and belonged to a family of archaeopteries that had become completely extinct. In terms of its range of existence, the family is widely distributed in the vast northern land from North America to Eurasia, and the famous family found in China is the paraentelodon genus Paraentelodon.
Reconstruction of the giant-jawed para-giant pig, picture from prehistoric-fauna.com
The giant-jawed sub-giant pig is taller than the aforementioned Kuban pig, with a body length of more than 3 meters, a shoulder height of 1.8 meters, a weight of about 1 ton, and a size similar to that of a bison. The giant-jawed paragi has an oversized head, and the canine teeth in its mouth are not rolled upwards to form fangs, but develop a thick sharpness.
Even if you close your mouth, you can clearly see the exposed tip of your teeth. There is a protruding cheekbones under the eyes of the giant jawed paragi, which are able to attach to the jaw muscles, creating a huge bite force. Paleontologists believe that the bite force of the giant-jawed paragi is enough to crush the bones, let alone the neck of the prey.
The family Officinalis not only flourished in Eurasia, but also extended its hooves to North America, evolving the Daeodon. Formerly known as the Pig of Phobia, also known as the Hell Pig, it is about the size of the Giant Jawed Paragi, but the head is larger and the face is more vicious.
Fossilized skull of the phobia pig, image from Wikipedia
The phobia lived in North America 29 million to 19 million years ago, and on the plains of North America, the phoblast is the absolute overlord! Tall and fierce, the phopod became the top predator at the top of the food chain, and it survived for up to 10 million years.
The family pterophoridae eventually disappeared entirely 16 million years ago, and their location was replaced by emerging carnivores. Despite being nicknamed "prehistoric giant pigs", it's important to remember that these huge, pig-like prehistoric behemoths don't actually have a half-cent relationship with the pig family.
Today's pig family has 6 genera and 17 species after more than 30 million years of evolution, including some of the larger ones: the Large Forest Pig (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni) in Africa can reach a shoulder height of 1 meter, and the adult male weighs more than 250 kg; the Wild Boar (Susscrofa) living in Siberia has a shoulder height of nearly 1.3 meters and weighs between 300 and 350 kg.
In December 2015, Russian hunter Peter Maximov shot a wild boar with a shoulder height of 1.7 meters and a weight of 535 kilograms, the largest wild boar recorded by human scientific measurements.
Whether it is a prehistoric giant pig or a modern wild boar running rampant in the mountains and forests, it is very strange to us modern people, and we are most familiar with domestic pigs
Finally, I wish you all a happy Year of the Pig and a smooth pig affair!
The author of this article: Jiang Hong, Jiang Hong (Jiang's little robber dragon), paleontological science writer, archaeologist, has long been a contributor to well-known popular science magazines such as "Naturalism", "Zhili", "Global Exploration" and so on.