Latin names of animals

[enteng]

what is the latin name for pig

[New Forester]

Presume you mean scientific name, not what the Romans called it...? Domestic pig is Sus scrofa. Wild pig or "boar" is the same, and is of course the ancestor of domestic pig. The pig family is Suidae, which includes other wild species, such as the babirusa, warthog, red river hog and a few others. Then there are the South American peccaries, which are similar and quite closely related. Hippopotamuses are rather more distantly related. There were quite a few others, now extinct. All are in the same division of hoofed mammals, the suborder Suiformes.

[JB7]

Sus domesticus

[New Forester]

Domestic pig is indeed often given specific or subspecific rank -- Sus domesticus, or Sus scrofa ssp domesticus. It doesn't appear that all scientists agree on this point (and nor are they likely to) -- real animals don't always fit neatly into our definitions of "species". The two types do interbreed very freely, and domesticus is certainly descended from scrofa. Some of the other wild species seem to have been domesticated too. This page gives what must be most living species of pig (actually many more than I'd thought), and their classification: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classifi cation/Suidae.html Peccaries are rather less closely related to pigs than I'd thought: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classifi cation/Tayassuidae.html