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Name : Babirusa(Babyrousa )
Where it lives : Sulawesi and neighboring island in Indonesia
Babirusas are among the oldest living members of the pig family and until 2002, all babirusas were thought to belong to a single species.
What it eats : leaf , fruit , mushroom , tree diagram bark , insects , Pisces and small mammalian
Why it ’s awe-inspiring : When we think of slovenly person , we tend to render circular animals with cunning snouts , but babirusas are very dissimilar .
Male babirussa have large upper canid tooth , which grow downwards before crook back around and up through the top of the rostrum .
Like human fingernail and haircloth , these tusk - like teeth continue to develop throughout their lifetime — and they can even acquire into the skull . After start from the tops of the snout , the teeth attend like antlers , which is how babirusas receive their name — the Holy Writ Babyrousa Babyrussa means " pig deer " in the Malay language . Babirusas are also sometimes called " prehistoric grunter " because they appear incave drawings from nearly 40,000 year ago .
scientist do n’t know precisely why manlike babirusas have these tusks . to begin with , biologist believed they helped Male fight each other to gain mate , but babirusas do n’t really use their tusk for fighting — they get up on their hind legs and box each other . babirussa tusks are also fragile , making them unsuitable for combat . It ’s now thought they are used toattract female , although this theory has n’t been prove .
fellow member of theBabyrousagenus live in swamps in rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and Buru , and the Togian and Sula archipelagos — and are found nowhere else in the populace . They ’re around 2 feet ( 60 centimeters ) marvellous , 3 feet ( 90 atomic number 96 ) long and canweigh more than 200 pounds(90 kilograms ) .
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They are among the oldest living members of the pig home . Until 2002 , all babirusas were thought to belong to a single species . There are now three known living species of babiroussa . The North Sulawesi babirussa ( Babyrousa celebensis ) is a dark-brown - gray color and lives on Sulawesi . The Buru babirussa ( Babyrousa babyrussa ) is covered in blockheaded , golden hair and is native to the islands of Buru and the Sula Islands of Mangole and Taliabu . The hairless Togian babirusa ( Babyrousa togeanensis ) is only find on the Togian islands .
— Silky Orycteropus afer : The tiny , box ball of pelt
— Sun bear : The little carnivores that bet so similar to humans they ’ve been mistake for people put on costume
— Qinling cat bear : The shrunken pandas that diverge 300,000 yr ago and sometimes come out chocolate-brown
A fourthly small coinage called the Bola Batu babiroussa ( Babyrousa bolabatuensis ) was identified by fogey on Sulawesi in the 1950s , but it is believed to beextinct .
Babirusas also have intricate , two - chamber stomachs , which are more like the digestive system of sheep than those of their fellow pigs . They tend to use their hooves to dig for food for thought but can also stick out on their two hind leg to reach yield and folio on trees . Unlike other members of the pig family , babirusas do n’t have a thick rostral bone in their snouts , meaning their snouts are too weak to root in hard earth .
Babirusas are believed to have diverged from their squealer ancestors between 26 million and 12 million age ago , potentially because they became isolated on Sulawesi when sea levels rise at the destruction of the last chicken feed geezerhood .
