Sus ahoenobarbus

The Palawan Bearded Pig is the largest wild boar in the Philippines, with a head-body length of 142-154 cm and a tail length of 19 cm. It weighs about 150 kg. The body is dark gray to black, with some sparse black hair covering the neck, trunk and limbs. A long, light-colored mane runs along the center of the back, most prominent on the back of the head and neck. The tail is covered with long black hair and has a distinctive feathery "brush" at the tip. The head is long and narrow, with a nasal disc at the end of the head. This species has no facial protrusions, but the color of the face contrasts with the rest of the head to create a masked appearance. The forehead, the end of the nose and around the eyes are black, while a long white or ochre hair runs across the bridge of the nose in front of the eyes and widens with the jawline. The species is named "Palawan Bearded Pig" because it has the longest "beard" on the lower jaw among similar species, and the

It is endemic to the Palawan fauna of the Philippines, located on the northeastern edge of the main island of the Greater Sunda Islands. It occurs on the main island of Palawan, as well as some of the larger satellite islands: Balabac, Bugsuk, Busuanga, Calauit, Coron, Culion, Dumaran, Linapacan, and Pandanan. It has also been recorded on some smaller islands close to the main island of Palawan, but it is unclear whether it is permanently inhabited on these islands. Fossil record from the Late Pleistocene The species is from Quezon in southern Palawan (2001), and El Nido in northern Palawan from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene (2011).
It inhabits a variety of primary and secondary habitats, from lowland and mid-montane rainforests from sea level to 1,500 m to dry open woodlands and grasslands. It also frequents drier limestone and mangrove forests along the coast and occurs in cultivated and managed areas.

Palawan Bearded Pig (Sus ahoenobarbus) has no subspecies. The Palawan Bearded Pig is similar to the Borneo Bearded Pig and was once a subspecies of the Borneo Bearded Pig, but its size is significantly smaller than the Borneo Bearded Pig distributed in Indonesia. The Palawan Bearded Pig is different from the larger Borneo Bearded Pig in terms of skull and body shape as well as facial markings. The whiskers of the Borneo Bearded Pig tend to be most prominent between the eyes and nose, while the hair of the Palawan Bearded Pig in the same area is quite short, with the longest hair along the jaw line.

The Palawan bearded pig has not been studied in depth, and almost nothing is known about its movements, family activities, and social organization. Much of what is known comes from hearsay. The species is organized into families of 2-3 individuals. Primarily nocturnal, although this activity pattern may be influenced by intensive hunting, except in relatively undisturbed areas, where the species is most active in the early morning and evening, but in areas where hunting and other human disturbances are commonplace, it is almost exclusively active at night. These pigs can be seen in open grassland habitats throughout the day, except during the hottest hours, before they begin to forage in large numbers. During the day, the Palawan Bearded Pig seeks shelter in the forest, digging shallow depressions in sheltered areas. Foraging occurs in most native forest types and wetlands, and occasionally in grasslands. As forests on Palawan become increasingly fragmented, cultivated land is an important food source for the species, and the Palawan Bearded Pig can be extremely destructive to crops. The most common sign of field sightings is ruts made by digging plant roots in the soil with the snout. The species travels between islands and often uses muddy depressions for wallowing and mud bathing.

The Palawan Bearded Pig is an omnivore. They mainly feed on large quantities of plants, especially the oil-rich fruits of the Fagaceae and Dipterocarpaceae families. This includes fallen fruits from trees such as banyan trees, as well as agricultural crops such as corn, rosemary, barley, cereals, and rice. They may also consume rhizomes, fungi, and arthropods, invertebrates, and small vertebrates in the soil. Especially during the fruiting period of trees, the Palawan bearded pigs will gather together to eat fallen fruits on the ground, or in revenge for humans, occasionally raiding neighboring forest gardens or other plant species.

Little is known about the reproductive habits of the Palawan bearded pig, although they may reproduce very similarly to the Bornean bearded pig. Similar to other pigs, the young are born with light orange stripes.

The Palawan Bearded Pig (E. pavo) maintains a relatively widespread distribution, even if it is sporadic. Although still locally present in some areas, the species is declining in population due to habitat fragmentation and heavy hunting pressure in many areas. The Palawan Bearded Pig is the largest remaining member of the Palawan megafauna and is therefore a major hunting target for both subsistence and bushmeat trades. Traditional hunting methods still practiced in more remote areas involve the use of snares made of heavy palm poles and bamboo tips fixed at the height of the pig's shoulder, used both to immobilize prey but also, in the past, to deter human intruders. Dogs are often used to hunt, followed by shots with low-powered rifles or spears shot with short bamboo shafts with detachable iron tips. "Boar bombs" usually consist of carved sweet potatoes filled with explosives, glass, porcelain or metal fragments and a trigger, used both to deter boars from escaping from raiding fields and to immobilize baited meat. Once the Palawan bearded pig is attracted to the bait and chews, the explosives explode, causing horrific injuries to the jaws that are almost always fatal, but usually not immediately.

The Palawan bearded pig is legally protected by the Philippines' wildlife protection laws, including the entire set of laws governing the Palawan region. However, enforcement of such regulations is often poor in most areas, including some designated "protected areas." Priority requirements therefore include more effective enforcement of existing laws and the addition of new protected areas in key areas, where possible they are intended to give local government authorities better management control than the existing national protected area system. Recommendations for managing wild boar in non-protected areas to sustainably sustain hunting (Blouch 1995) are also unlikely to be effectively implemented.

Listed in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2016 ver 3.1 - Near Threatened (NT).

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