Warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus)

I need to go to bed, so I won’t say too much about warthogs, except that they live in Africa south of the Sahara and can go for months without water. And they dig holes to hang out in, keeping themselves warm when it’s cold out and cool when it’s hot.

The Wonders of Animal Life books I mentioned in my mountain lion post include a full-page color photograph of a warthog in the “Nature’s Strange Show of Freaks” chapter. Isn’t that mean? It gets even meaner. The caption reads thusly:

WARTHOG, A TUSKED AND SNOUTED FREAK OF THE AFRICAN WILD With grotesquely curving tusks, the hideous warts below the eyes which give this wild hog its name, and a draggle of coarse hair on head and back, this animal is indeed one of Nature’s freaks. The skin is as cracked as dried mud and the typical pig eyes, small and evil-shining, add to the generally grotesque and repulsive mien. The warts below the eyes may serve to protect them during the battles between the boars.

Evil-shining eyes? A repulsive mien? Preposterous!