WHEN it comes to African game animals, the warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) is an anomaly. It is ugly to the point of being beautiful. Its head seems to be too big for its body and the hair covering its body is sparse.
At night warthogs sleep underground and they always reverse into the abandoned aardvark holes they usually use for that purpose. They have enormous upper and lower incisors or tusks – the upper ones are used for digging when foraging and the lower ones for self-defence when fighting. And, when warthogs take off running, their tails are held upright like aerials.
Warthog boars stand 70 to 76cm high at the shoulder and can weigh up to 100kg on the hoof but the average weight is 65 to 80kg. Mature sows stand 60 to 64cm at the shoulder and weigh approximately 40 to 60kg.
It is quite easy to distinguish between the boars and sows. Sows have only one pair of warts while boars have two pairs of well-developed warts – one pair below the eyes and another further
