A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1367 entries
peccary
A peccary is a pig-shaped hoofed mammal of the Americas that is not a pig, though the two look alike and were long assumed to be relatives. It has straight downward-pointing tusks rather than curling ones, three toes on the hind foot rather than four, a complex stomach, and a scent gland on its back that the herd uses for mutual recognition. Three species range from the Southwest to Argentina.
Etymology
The word came into English through Spanish and French from a Carib language of the Caribbean and northern South America. The collared peccary is also called the javelina, on this site, which is a Spanish name that traces back through Arabic.
Notes
White-lipped peccaries travel in herds of a hundred or more through South American forest and can be heard long before they are seen, clacking their tusks. The scent gland gives a herd a strong musky smell that hangs in the air, which is why in most encounters people smell them first, and the collared species is nearly blind and relies on it heavily to keep the group together.