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A wild boar at the duck pond. The boar's coat colour provides excellent camouflage against the autumnal landscape.
Wild boar coats can be described as brindled and bristly with a thick underlying brown pelage. However, coat colours can vary considerably and this page illustrates typical wild boar coat colours as well as a few anomalies. |
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Stripey (piglet/boarlet)
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Red (juvenile)
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Black (adult)
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Brown (adult)
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a.) Leucistic

An East Sussex leucistic wild boar These leucistic wild boar are not albinos as they don't have red eyes and posses some dark pigment (melanin) in their coats. The pale coats are probably a result of a mutation in their coat-colour genes. At feeding stations, approximately one in four of the Kent/East Sussex population in one particular study area where observed to be leucistic.
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b.) Spotted (Black spots on white coat)
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Spotted wild boar occasionally occur in the wild in continental Europe - the spots are due to a genetic mutation, and are not an inpurity in the blood-line from domestic pig genes. |
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If genuine, this is the first spotted wild boar to be free-living in the UK that we are aware of. There is a strong likelihood that if they are seen in the wild in the UK, they would be mistaken for an escaped domestic variety or domestic pig/wild boar hybrid.
(awaiting credit details)
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c.) Albino
An albino wild boar photographed in Japan (© unknown).
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Coat colour in hybrid wild boar x domestic pigs, and feral pigs, varies enormously depending on the breed of domestic pig that initially escaped. Coats may be entirely of one colour: black, brown or white are common, or with coloured spots, patches, stripes, saddles and shoulder belts. Feral pigs that are all black or brown in colouration can be distinghuished from wild boar by body shape.Escaped domestic pigs which have bred in the wild for several generations begin to lose their domestic appearance and develop thick bristly coats, and larger head, neck and shoulders. Piglets usually do not possess the characteristic brown and yellow longitudinal stripes of pure wild boar piglets, though there are rare exceptions to this rule. In Britain there are no populations of feral pigs. |