The Ugly Hogling
The warthog is one of the Kruger National Park’s most peculiar animals and one of the ugliest animals, which is also a member of the group: The Ugly 5, a group of the ugliest animals in the Kruger. The warthog is a daytime animal that spends most of their time scrounging and looking for food. These animals are usually found in family groups. Warthogs are usually found in family groups. Warthogs will burrow during the night and enter their holes tail first to allow them to quickly escape if something is hiding inside. There are three types of groups hat can be seen in the Kruger National Park, Matriarchal groups, bachelors and solitary boars. The Matriarchal groups consist of sows and all their piglets. The Boars have no part in raising the piglets and rarely associate with females outside mating season. Warthogs don’t have a set mate for life and will instead mate with multiple members. Waterhole are one of the most common places where you can find warthogs as they love to roll around in the mud and water.
Warthogs are not picky when it comes to their habitat locations but according to tests it has been noted that they prefer woodland savannahs. Warthogs are distributed all over South Africa and are no a threatened species. They occur naturally on farms throughout South Africa have been reintroduced in areas that they were thought to be extinct in. Warthogs are found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. They can be found in open savannah areas in watering holes and marsh areas throughout the Kruger National Park. Warthogs fall prey to a variety of animals including Lions, cheetahs, Leopards, Crocodiles and hyenas. The piglets are also very vulnerable to the predators that prey on the adults and also fall prey to Eagles and jackals which means that the warthog is an easy to hunt meal in the Kruger National Park.
The Warthog has become one of the most beloved animals, aside from the fact that it is so ugly, because of the iconic character, from the world acclaimed Disney movie: The Lion King, Pumbaa. Warthogs are the go to meal for almost all the predators in the Kruger National Park because of it’s small size and the large availability of this animal throughout the Kruger National Park. The hooves of a warthog are a bit narrower than Bushpigs with the dew claws marking clearer in the spoor.
