Why do warthogs eat on their knees

As you might suspect when you look at their big snout, warthogs are good sniffers. Warthogs often kneel down on their front legs and use their muscular snout to dig up dinner. They even shuffle along in the kneeling position if there are plenty of tasty things in the area. Snorts and squeals: Warthog females, called sows, are much more social than the males, called boars.

They stay in groups of up to 40 with their young, called piglets. The sows communicate with all sorts of grunts, chirrups, growls, snorts, and squeals.

These vocalizations can be greetings, threats, and warnings, among other things. The sows also like to rest close together and will even groom each other. The boars push and ram each other with their heads and their blunt upper tusks to see which is the most powerful.

The warts act as pads to cushion the blows, so they rarely injure each other. The boars also scent mark trees and rocks as high as they can, to show other boars how large they are. Their scent glands are in their lips and in pouches under the eyes. When one of the boars gives up, the other boar gets to mate with the sows. These burrows are used for a number of reasons, such as for sleeping, where they raise their young, and a safe place to escape from predators.

In order to ensure their safety, and when protecting themselves from pursuing predators, they will slide into a burrow backwards, tail first, so that they can use their formidable tusks to defend themselves against unwanted guests. When startled or threatened, warthogs can be surprisingly fast, running at speeds of up to 50 km per hour!

You will notice that their face is quite wide and flat , with a prolonged snout and four impressive tusks. Their eyes sit high on their heads so that they can spot predators, even while grazing. While their eyesight may be quite poor, they have an excellent sense of smell and are able to sniff out food and detect predators. Their hearing is also quite keen. Thanks to their short necks and relativity long legs it is far easier for them to kneel while grazing than it would be for other grazers.

Quite often when you see a warthog in the wild it will either be running away with its tail straight up… or grazing. Warthogs spend much of their time grazing for food, with grass as a staple in their diet. However, they are omnivorous, meaning that they will eat both plants and small animals when given the opportunity — their diet can be quite adaptable depending on the availability of resources! Usually, you will see them eating grass and using their snout and sometimes tusks to dig up bulbs and roots.

Like their relatives, warthogs are plump, hooved animals with large nostrils at the end of the snout. They have little fur, except for a mane that goes down the spine to the middle of the back, according to the Animal Diversity Web ADW. Their tails also end with a tuft of hair.

They have large teeth or tusks. Common warthogs have two upper and four to six lower incisors, according to ADW, while desert warthogs lack incisors. The upper tusks grow up to 10 or 11 inches 25 to 30 centimeters long, according to the San Diego Zoo. From hooves to shoulders, warthogs are around 30 inches 36 centimeters tall and 35 to 59 inches 89 to cm long from shoulders to rump. They weigh a hefty to lbs. Common warthogs are slightly larger than desert warthogs. Common warthogs live in the grasslands and savanna woodlands of Africa.

They prefer open areas, and are found on Mount Kilimanjaro at an elevation of 3, meters 9, feet , according to ADW. Desert warthogs are found in eastern Africa — in parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Can run up to. Challenges Human-wildlife conflict poses a threat to warthogs.

Solutions Our solutions to protecting the warthog:. Protected Area. Create more protected spaces. Community Involvement. Engage communities in education and conservation. Female warthogs abandon their young. Diet The warthog really puts its back into eating. Habitats Where do warthogs live? They are found in moist and arid savannas.

They avoid rainforests, deserts, and high mountains. Our Work Never Stops Learn how we're protecting Africa's species each and every day so we never have to live in a world without elephants, rhinos, and other precious wildlife.