When one travels within the range of the peccaries, one hears references to “wild pigs” or “wild hogs.” In Spanish-speaking countries these are “Loc puercos,” “los cerdos,” or “los cochinos” while in Portuguese-speaking countries people talk of “porcos.” German settles in South America refers to “the schwein.” All of these names have been given to peccaries by people who first knew domestic hogs and equated them with peccaries in the New World.

Another group of names, however, was applied to peccaries before people knew European imported livestock. Traveling through the ranges of the three species of peccaries, one hears many different names given to them by indigenous people of the New World, depending on what tribal language is spoken. These names appear in explorers’ reports, anthropologists’ studies, and naturalists’ diaries. The accompanying table lists some names for the collared and white-lipped peccaries. The Chacoan peccary, which has never inhabited a large range, has fewer names. Wetzel 91977, 1981b) gives only four local names for the Chacoan peccary: taguá, paguá, cure-boro and quimilero.

According to Séton (1929), the word Pecari, for many years, the accepted genetic name for the white-lipped peccary and now the accepted species name, is of Brazilian Tupi Indian origin meaning “an animal which makes many paths through the woods.” The word *Tayassu(, the generic name for both collared and white-lipped peccaries, is also of Indian origin. Its meaning, according to Cabrera and Yepes (1940), is “the gnawer of roots.”

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PIGS AND PECCARIES

Confusion between peccaries and pigs is natural. Superficially peccaries and true pigs look alike, and they have many similar habits. To understand the ecological and evolutionary place of the peccaries, we must consider their origin, where they evolved, how they differ from hogs and how they are similar, and what exists today. The morphological and anatomical differences and similarities between peccaries and true pigs are convenient clues to the relationship between the two groups. For the answers to the real relationship, however, we must turn to the paleontologist and the evolutionist. These scientists tell us where the peccaries originated and describe the evolutionary sequence, with its development of new forms, their eventual extinction, and the new species that followed. Luckily, these explorers into the past have found the peccary and its kin interesting subjects. Many times they have had to obtain their impressions of what the early ancestors were like from only tiny bits of jaws and other bones. Consequently, the information is sketchy and there are disagreements on many issues, such as the relationship between the various forms.

The Suidae of the Old World and the Tayassuidae of the Western Hemisphere have developed along similar lines. They have evolved over evolutionary time into animals that appear alike—the disclike snot, the general shape of the head and body, and general features. A comparison of their differences and similarities is given in the table below.