Scrofa

Scrofa Temporal range: 5 million AD
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Suidae
Gallery

“

Walking over rugged limestone is very different from roaming through a forest ... The whole animal is only half the height of its bulky, wild boar ancestor. — The Future Is Wild: A Natural History of the Future

”

The scrofa is a small wild pig endemic to the limestone plateaux and mountains of the Mediterranean Salt Flat in 5 million AD. It has gracile limbs built for agility, and walks on the tips of its elongated hooves. Despite standing no more than half a metre at the shoulder, scrofas are the largest animals in the ice age Mediterranean, and are therefore important prey items for the gryken.

Evolution

Scrofas are descended from wild boars (Sus scrofa).

The scrofa evolved from the Human era wild boar (Sus scrofa), an adaptable and widespread animal with a highly versatile diet, which originally existed in much of Eurasia, particularly forested regions. The onset of ice age conditions in the Mediterranean, and the formation of the salt flat, occurred over a relatively short timespan, perhaps as little as a few tens of thousands of years; the evolution of the scrofa was therefore very rapid. Its lineage quickly adapted to the open habitats of bare karst plateaux and mountains, and shrunk in size due to the decrease in food resources. Its specialised adaptations to moving over rock have evolved convergently with those of other artiodactyls, such as the klipspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus).

Biology

The scrofa is significantly smaller and more gracile than its wild boar ancestor, measuring approximately 8–12 in (20–30 cm) or 50 cm (19 in) in shoulder height and at least 70 cm (2 ft) in length. The scrofa's limbs are elongated and slender, as are its delicate hooves, which are strongly digitigrade: scrofas walk on their "tip-toes," giving them a stiff-legged gait. This mode of locomotion is very effecient for moving over the uneven surface of the karst, giving scrofas great agility, stability, and endurance. The scrofa's elongated, cylindrical snout has developed into a sort of short trunk, flexible and long-lipped.

Scrofas are sexually dimorphic: boars are larger than sows, with large tusks and more prominent tufted ears. Juvenile scrofas, known as "scroflets," are camouflaged by longitudinal stripes on their coats.

Behaviour

Female scrofas and scroflets live in small family groups, composed of two dominant sows and their offspring. Scrofa boars are strictly solitary and itinerant: they fight one another for the right to mate with the dominant sows of other herds. The breeding habits of scrofas otherwise likely resemble those of Human era wild boars, with scroflets being born, or "farrowed," in the spring, in litters of 3-6 individuals. Male scroflets leave their herd upon reaching sexual maturity. Adult scrofa sentries watch over scroflets and defend them against predators.

Most of a scrofa's life is spent foraging and hunting. They are broadly omnivorous, consuming vegetation, roots, plant bulbs, smaller and slower animals, carrion, eggs, and some insects, but not flies. Their short trunks enable them to forage in relatively deep grykes.

Ecology

Grykens prey on scroflets, but adult scrofas are more a threat to grykens.

Scrofas are the largest animals in the ice age Mediterranean region. They are incapable of surviving on the extensive salt flat due to its high temperatures and extreme aridity, and are found only on the limestone karst plateaux surrounding the rim of the basin and the shores of its island-mountains, where the air is cold and dry. Vegetation on the plateaux, which grows from soil-filled grykes, is most abundant in the uplands during the spring.

The gryken, a carnivorous mustelid and the apex predator of the Mediterranean, is called the "worst enemy" of the scrofa, as scroflets represent its main prey item; adult scrofas, particularly boars, are too large for grykens to hunt. Predators such as grykens and birds of prey are most common in the uplands.

Appearances

In the documentary

In "The Vanished Sea," a solitary scrofa boar chases off a gryken which is stalking a scroflet. Some of the herd later discover a nest of cryptile eggs, which they eat. When the gryken successfully takes down another scroflet, the herd scatters in a panic, and another scroflet wanders off the karst and onto the hot, arid salt flat. The lost scroflet roams the salt for a day, coming across undrinkable hypersaline pools and a hunting cryptile, before dying of exposure.

List of appearances

• The Future Is Wild
  • 1x03. The Vanished Sea
• The Future Is Wild: A Natural History of the Future
• The Wild World of the Future
• The Future Is Wild: The Living Book

Notes

• "Scrofa" is the specific name of the modern wild boar (Sus scrofa), as well as the Latin and Italian term for a sow. It is derived from the Latin for "digger" or "rooter".
• The scrofa receives the least exposure of any animal in The Future Is Wild. It has never appeared in any spinoff media or exhibitions, in the U.S. special, or in the episode "Welcome to the Future". This makes it the only future animal to appear solely in its main episode and the companion books. All of the franchise's plants (the desert turnip, nursery vase, spitfire tree, grass tree, deathbottle, rainshadow plant, and lichen tree) have made more appearances than the scrofa.

Gallery

• Documentary
• Promotional

In other languages

Language	Name	Translation
French	Goret à trompe	"Trunked piglet"
Italian	Scrofoide	Based on the English name
Japanese	Sukurōfa (スクローファ)	Transcription of English name
Czech	Scrofa	Based on the English name