Early Chinese awareness of the 'horned' pig (genus Babyrousa)

Abstract

The adult male Babirusa (Babyrousa spp.) is recognised as a very unusual wild pig (Macdonald 2008). It is endemic to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and some neighbouring islands. The extent of its range has been decreasing for many years (Leus et al. 2016; Macdonald 2017; Macdonald & Johansson 2017). We are very fortunate that there are Pleistocene depictions of this animal, the female one of which has been dated to c. 33,400 BCE (Aubert et al. 2014). These were found on cave walls in the Southwest peninsula of Sulawesi, and highlight the historical local interest in this animal, in a region from which they subsequently have been exterminated (van Heekeren 1952, 1972).