The Awesome Island Pig That Stabs Itself in the Face

Pedro Hay

Kia ora, everybody! I hope we’re all settling back into 9 a.m. lectures and scurrying over to the Salient stands to see what new mysteries the horoscope will reveal this week. I’m sure we’ve all missed it. I’m back again with more bullshit, so read ahead to see what poor thing evolution has cooked up and set loose for me to take the piss out of. 

Coming up with a name for this article actually gave me a bit of a challenge, thanks to this animal’s entirely indecisive name. The babirusa, as it is formally known, gets its name from a combination of the Indonesian/Malay words for pig (babi) and deer (rusa). This is because it is a silly old creature that couldn't seem to make up its mind on what it wanted to be, and instead settled on some strange and ineffective in-between. Much like my choice of degree. 

However, after a quick nerd adventure through the internet, I found that the babirusa belongs to the family Suidae, which includes all kinds of pigs. With the exception of yo mama, though, haha burn. (Dear Salient editor, I do not condone bullying. Please don’t banish me.) 

The babirusa is found on Sulawesi and several smaller Indonesian island groups, including the Togian, Sula and Buru islands.This distribution is interesting, as they seem to have skipped over all some fairly significant bits of land in between, particularly the significant island cluster between Sulawesi and Sula. One of the leading hypotheses on this phenomenon is that they were spread artificially by humans as gifts to royalty and important leaders. I don’t know why anybody would want one of these things, but perhaps this was the ancient equivalent of your drunk flatmate dragging a roadcone back home from Courtenay Place for you to puzzle over in the morning. 

Another explanation for their restricted distribution could be attributed to the babirusa’s unique snout physiology. Unlike most pigs, babirusas lack the rostral bone that helps other pigs root through the ground for food. These guys are therefore a bit less equipped for classic pig behavior and are especially associated with forests where they can access rivers, swamps, wallows, and salt licks. This would be pretty sad if it wasn’t only the second most unfortunate part of being a babirusa. 

As the pattern in nature follows, animals left to develop on small, isolated islands tend to think they can just do whatever the hell they want, since nobody else is around to stop them. They then evolve all sorts of strange adaptations that make everyone else concerned. For the babirusa, the adaptation of choice is a set of  awesome tusks that painfully grow through their snout and curve back towards the face. This fun little gimmick is only present on the males, thanks to testosterone making the dudes all macho and pushy, while the women were simply too smart to bother with this kind of nasty nose nonsense. 

Babirusa males have two sets of tusks, because they were just too flamboyant to settle for one pair like every other type of pig did. I don't know what they’re trying to get at by showing off so much. Honestly, their greed sickens me. The bottom pair of tusks sprouts from the lower jaw and juts out from the sides of their mouth. Sensible, appropriate tusks. 

The top pair of tusks, meanwhile, are insane and fucked up. They are actually upper canine teeth that grow upwards, pierce through the skin of the snout, and curve back towards the forehead like some kind of demented, self-sabotaging unicorn. The babirusa can proudly claim the top spot for most painful puberty. Lucky them. As stupid as this is, it is only the first half of the male babirusa's hellish nose job. Don't feel bad yet, because it gets worse.

These tusks grow in a sharp backwards curve, can reach up to a foot long, and do not stop growing throughout the babirusa’s life. This means that eventually these tusks can curve around and begin practically holding the poor bastards at knifepoint. In rare cases, babirusas have been found with tusks that grow so long they end up looping around and gouging into their foreheads. As much as I sometimes wish my teeth would shoot into my face and put me out of the misery of doing my readings, I wouldn't wish this combined toothache-headache on anyone. 

Thankfully, this does not happen often. Evolution is not too kind on things that stab their own brains. These face stabbers are quite brittle, and often break down from wear and tear as males battle each other over territory and mating rights. 

This brings me to the most confusing and frustrating part of my journey into the babirusa’s already confusing and frustrating life. After watching several documentaries, poring over webpages, and even reading scientific journals from scientists that have decided that island pigs are their research of choice, I came to an interesting finding: these tusks might not even be that important.

Do you know what kind of whiplash that gave me? I've spent this whole time building up to these crazy tusks, just to find out that researchers are still not completely sure why they have to be acting so extra.

The tusks appear to be linked to male competition and mate selection, because even in the animal kingdom, guys would rather bang their heads against each other than sit down and talk about their feelings. The short lower tusks are better suited for attacking, functioning as little knives which the babirusa can sharpen through use and the active habit of rubbing them on trees. The flamboyant upper tusks are used for defense and hooking the other males face to try and drive them into the ground, which is the best explanation for why they curve so ridiculously. Uniquely, babirusas found on the Buru island of Indonesia appear to have lost this hooking function, and instead just use them as battering rams because apparently the little daggers sprouting out of their lower jaw just weren’t enough. 

Some researchers believe that, during combat, males may try to snap off the upper tusks of their opponents, making them appear less attractive to females. I can get behind this explanation, because I imagine this was a rumour started by the females to get the males to save each other from a slow, self-inflicted lobotomy.

Case closed, right? The tusks curve back and threaten to stab the poor thing in the face, but surely it's all worth it if it guarantees glorious victory and a beautiful pig wife? 

Wrong! Most of the time, babirusas fight by standing up on their back legs and boxing each other. I use the term “boxing” loosely, as all the videos of these fights that I've seen look more like awkward attempts at ballroom dancing than anything remotely vicious. The tusks are doing so much just to be a secondary, back-up option. I'm sitting here with my teeth gritted, furious at this pig because it's so stupid I can’t believe it. 

Oh, and if this wasn’t enough? They are also known to occasionally beef with local monkey populations, which I think is a little immature on the monkeys part as they are surely smart enough to realise the babirusa’s already got enough going on. However, monkeys are not the only primates these freakish creatures interact with. Indonesian culture reflects a long-standing relationship with the babirusa in ways you might not expect, with the animal’s fearsome appearance inspiring demonic masks and characters throughout history. Multiple historical sites across Indonesia, including the ancient Balinese Court of Justice pavilion, feature paintings of demonic babirusa’s. 

Outside of Indonesia, the babirusa has made waves—okay, maybe more like ripples—in Jewish religious communities over debates about whether it could be considered kosher or not. The Torah states that, for an animal's meat to be kosher, the animal must chew cud—that gross thing sheep and cows do where they throw up in their mouth then chew it again—and have cloven (split) hooves. The babirusa has split hooves and a weird digestive system that has, at times, been compared to that of cud-chewing animals. Unlike other pigs, this has led some people to wonder whether the barbirusa might be a magical loophole which would allow Jewish people to eat bacon. 

This started a misconception that still pops up in some Jewish religious debates today. However, the babirusa’s weird stomach does not actually mean it chews cud. Evidence shows that the babirusa breaks down plant fiber through microbial fermentation, but it does not regurgitate and chew it again like a true ruminant. Yes, even its organs are weird, but at the end of the day, the babirusa is indeed a pig. This means no kosher bacon and, I assume, at least a few sad rabbis. 

As is sadly a recurring theme with many interesting animals, babirusa populations face the threat of extinction because of habitat loss and illegal hunting. Indonesia’s geography as a collection of islands means that space is hard to come by, promoting expansion into the babirusas habitat. This is especially harmful given that it has adapted to specific island conditions, and in some places, a lack of major natural predators. Furthermore, the babirusa’s freakish tusks make it a target for poachers and hunters hoping to score a quick buck alongside some extra meat to sell at the market. 

As New Zealanders, there's not a lot for all the babirusa mega fan-club to do directly, but the World Wildlife Fund and Save our Species International Union for Conservation of Nature both support helpful conservation work, including projects that have previously focused on the babirusa and the habitats they rely on. So go check them out. 

The babirusa is an incredibly unique and fascinating animal, riding the edge between different species as it’s grown and adapted in isolation from the rest of the world. More than just that, it is inspiring, thought provoking, perhaps even life-changing. The babirusa's insane death tusks are stupid, as is now obvious, but to me, they also speak to letting down our walls to the world. 

Life is scary, but raising your defenses too high can sometimes come back around to hurt you. Don’t be like the babirusa. Don’t let your defenses come back around to stab you in the face. It is only by charging headfirst into the world—please don't charge headfirst into your bro like these things do—that our guard comes down and our life can open up to new, exciting, non-lobotomising experiences. 

Raise awareness. Talk to your mates. Fly the flag of environmental justice on the babirusa's behalf. But please, don’t live your life the way a freakish island kind-of sort-of half pig does.