The bushpig (Potamochoerus larvatus) is a member of the pig family that inhabits forests, woodland, riverine vegetation and cultivated areas in East and Southern Africa.

[5] They resemble the domestic pig, and can be identified by their pointed, tufted ears and face mask.

Distributed over a wide range, the bushpig occurs from Ethiopia and Somalia in the north to southeastern DR Congo and southwards through the Cape and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces, South Africa, where it is largely known from the areas around Johannesburg and all along the country's southern coast.

[4] It is also known to inhabit Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In 1993 Peter Grubb, writing for the IUCN, split both the bushpig and the warthog into different species, and recognised numerous subspecies of all African hogs.

The bushpig subspecies from West Africa (porcus), with more reddish hair, was seen as an independent species by him.

[2][9][10] P. larvatus is very closely related to P. porcus, the bushpig from West Africa also known as 'red river hog', with which it can interbreed,[11] although others dispute this.

[10] Subspecies recognised in 2005 were:[9] The main habitat requirement is dense cover: bushpigs avoid open forests or savannas.

Groups engage in ritual aggressive behaviour when encountering each other, but will actually fight for large food sources.

Farrowing may occur at any time of the year but there is a pronounced peak in the warmest part of the summer (from October to February in South Africa).

[5] The alpha sow builds a nest three metre wide and one metre high during the winter, with bedding consisting of stacked hay, twigs or plant debris from floods, to keep the litter of piglets for approximately four months while they wean.

In one case a game scout was forced to spend three days in a tree avoiding a stalking bushpig.

[10] They are omnivorous and their diet can include roots, crops, succulent plants, water sedges, rotten wood, insects, small reptiles, eggs, nestlings and carrion.

[5] A behaviour observed in Uganda is to follow a troop of monkeys or baboons in the trees above to feed on the falling fruit and peels.

[5][10] In South Africa, 40% of the diet was tubers and other underground plant parts, 30% was herbage, 13% fruit, 9% animal matter and 8% fungi.

[10] It is known for destructive grubbing, uprooting shrubs and scattering them around, unearthing all root crops, feeding on only a few, and trampling the rest.

There are also a few incidents of bushpig breaking into domestic pig paddocks to kill and eat both the sows and the young piglets.

However, the population of bushpigs in many farming areas is stable or growing despite the hunting efforts, due to largely inaccessible terrain, abundance of food, lack of predators, relatively high reproductive potential, and their rapid ability to adapt to hunting methods.

Some Zambian ethnicities also avoid bushpig meat, believing it harbours diseases such epilepsy.

[10] Its meat is considered a delicacy in South Africa; prices have fluctuated widely between 1995 and 2005.

[5] Throughout Africa, it is almost exclusively sold in local markets, although meat sometimes turns up in the larger towns or cities.

They are also suspicious of unfamiliar objects such as cigarette butts on their trails or broken branches or scuff-marks in the soil, and will avoid the area when they find them.

[5] In Southern Africa governments organise periodic culls to reduce bushpig numbers.