Featured Fossil: Miocene Peccary Lower Jaw | Submitted by Stephen Godfrey, Calvert Marine Museum
Posted on 05/19/2019 7:18:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Which came first, the pigs or the pioneers? In Barbados, that has been a historical mystery ever since the first English colonists arrived on the island in 1627 to encounter what they thought was a herd of wild European pigs.
A recent discovery by an SFU archaeologist is shedding new light on the matter. Christina Giovas uncovered the jaw bone of a peccary, a South American mammal that resembles a wild pig, while researching a larger project on prehistoric animal introductions in the Caribbean...
Giovas and collaborators George Kamenov and John Krigbaum of the University of Florida radiocarbon-dated the bone and conducted strontium isotope analysis to determine the age and whether the peccary was born on Barbados or had been imported from elsewhere.
The results showed the peccary was local and dated to 1645-1670, when the English wrote their account of finding wild European pigs on the Caribbean island. The researchers were not only able to show there had been a previously undetected historic peccary introduction but that the region's earliest celebrated maps depicted peccaries that had been mistaken for pigs by the English.
Giovas says the findings upend Barbados' accepted colonial history and reflect how quickly Europeans began to alter New World environments by altering species distributions.
"Checking historical and archaeological records, we determined the most likely source of peccary introduction was from Spanish or Portuguese ships passing the island in the 16th century--and most likely left as a source of meat for future visiting sailors," she says.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Featured Fossil: Miocene Peccary Lower Jaw | Submitted by Stephen Godfrey, Calvert Marine Museum
Peccaries, pigs, javelinas. They all look like pork to me.
Eating a javelina hog will leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Javalinas are not related to pigs.
The little one is cute.
When they grow up, not so much.
But interesting they found a good home there.
Not in Phoenix.
Sounds like a circa 70’s crappy economy car.
“Just like that actor guy, Gregory Peccary.”
They have razor-sharp teeth. Stay away.
Those animals have no redeeming social value.
Sailors have eaten worse...
There was a large prehistoric peccary native to the southeastern US. Apparently they were very tasty because heir bones have been found in rock shelters... and they were exterminated to the last spare rib before Europeans arrived.
The ones I have eaten were very good.
Like most animals, much depends on what the animal was eating when killed, and how it was prepared.
Javalinas, or Peccaries, have a scent gland in the middle of the back that has to be cut out and handled carefully.
That’s the tallest rat I’ve ever seen :D
I dunno. Most of the ‘rats I’m familiar with are in the neighborhood of five feet or so in height!
...they actually occupy their own family -- the Tayassuidae. They are artiodactyls (i.e., the even-toed ungulates), a large group of herbivores that includes pigs, hippopotamuses, camels, llamas, deer, giraffes, antelopes, sheep, goats and cattle. Remarkably, artiodactyls and whales (Cetacea) share a common ancestor as indicated by their DNA and anatomy. Consequently, they are grouped together into the Cetartiodactyla (from Cetacea + Artiodactyla).
Yes, they're related to pigs. I agree, they also look like rats. Quote is from the second link, the one where the picture I posted is.
Thus the famous quote. “There be pigs here Captain”.
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