A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures

Visible only on male babirusas, the long, curly tusks of this giant mammal are its most peculiar feature. Females have them, too—but theirs are a lot smaller and stay hidden in their mouths. The tusks are actually the male’s upper canine teeth!

Males probably grow their tusks for display rather than combat. They’re too thin and brittle to withstand much force. When male babirusas fight, they don’t clash tusks—instead, they stand on their hind legs and box each other.

Their tusks grow throughout their lives and can reach 17 inches (43 cm) long. Sometimes the tusks will even grow through a babirusa’s skull if they aren’t worn down or broken off in a battle.

The babirusa has hairless, wrinkly skin. It’s also exceptionally large, weighing around 130 to 220 pounds (60–100 kg) when fully grown.

Like their name suggests, these babirusas live primarily in Sulawesi, Indonesia. In the past, they enjoyed living in low-lying areas around riverbanks and rain forests, where they could find many different kinds of food. But thanks to heavy hunting and habitat destruction, they’ve moved to higher ground, which is safer because it’s harder to get to.

Babirusas have such fierce-looking tusks, you’d expect them to hunt and eat large, intimidating beasts. But this isn’t the case at all! They forage through sand and mud for leaves, fruits, roots, insects, fish, and small animals, and use their powerful jaws to crack nuts.

Unfortunately, Sulawesi babirusas are among the first species to disappear from the ecosystem because of logging and deforestation. As their habitat is destroyed, their large size makes them easy to spot, and people love to hunt them for their meat and tusks. Their numbers have dropped by 30 percent in the past 20 years, and another 10 percent of them are expected to die out the near future.

Fun Facts

Babirusas are members of the swine family, which means they’re related—though only distantly—to pigs, hogs, and boars.
When they see familiar faces that they associate with food or fun, they’ll wag their tails and jump around playfully, like a dog greeting its owner!
They live to be around 24 years old.
Babirusa is a Malay term meaning “pig deer.”
For centuries, Indonesian masks and folk art have been inspired by the babirusa. There’s even a drawing of a female babirusa in the Maros Pangkep caves that’s at least 36,000 years old!