Short Stuff: The Javelina

Pigs, hogs, boars and javelinas. What's the difference? Tune in to find out.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry sitting in for Dave c.
And this is short stuff about the Have Alina one
of the most interesting animals of all time. Yeah, this
one came to me. This was my pick. And I
was watching for the probably fifteenth time the Royal Tannon

(00:25):
bombs and I always loved the part where Gene Hackman
looks up on the wall where his stuff to have
Helena head is missing, and he goes, where's my Helena?
And I was always like, what does have Elina? It's like,
is it something that only exists in Wes Anderson's world
or is it a real is it a just a
funny name that he calls a hog or a boar?

(00:49):
And it turns out, Havelna is I have Alena? Yeah?
And actually doesn't it? First of all, what a great movie, manah,
good movie. Um. And and secondly, I Have Elena is
not a boar or a hog because those are true pigs.
Turns out to have Lena is only distantly related to
the pig family. Um, It's a collared peckory. And it's

(01:10):
pretty interesting because the differences between it and a pig
are kind of surprising, especially if you just see one
of these things and you're like, oh, it's a pig,
or it's a war hog, is probably what you would say. Yeah,
I would think I would probably call it a boar
because we do have boars here in the South. Uh.
There they I'm not sure when the video came out,
but they did pop up on the news when a

(01:32):
viral video was released by Reese real estate agent and
Tucson who did this great video. I'm sure you watched
it of this have Alena just trucking like kind of
beside this apartment complex by itself, Holland Butt and you know,
you you always hear that like boars and have Elena's
like can be really fast, and you know they're big,

(01:55):
they're big animals, and you're like, how can they be
that fast? But then when you see this thing flying
down the road fast, it's kind of cool. And then people,
of course put music to it and it became a
big thing. But aside from that, if you don't live
in you know, uh, probably the handful of states where
you might see wild Havelna's, you might not know that
they're even a thing at all. Yeah. Um, they're they're

(02:17):
pretty cute looking, actually, especially if you're if you think
boars are cute, because they do like a little bit
like boars, like war hogs, but they're much smaller. There
may be two ft tall up to fifty pounds, which
is not not much. You can pick up a havelina
if it would let you. Sure you don't want to, though,
for a couple of reasons that we'll get into in
a minute. Um. But one of the big difference is

(02:38):
that they don't have a tail um or at least
not one that you can see um orreas of course
pigs do. And then another thing that really stands out
about the hevelinas is that they tend to hang out
in herds much more than a pig. Pig will hang
out with you human, whereas the hevelina isn't want anything
to do with you and would rather hang out with
its own people. That's right. Uh. And you know this

(03:01):
is uh. This is a shorty from the house Stuff
Works website, and they kind of tick off just a
bunch of interesting facts and myths and things. And another
identify r is that they have a scent gland near
the base of their tail, and they use that to
identify one another. They use it to mark their territory.
They will use it to mark each other. They will

(03:21):
like bump scent glands against each other. Uh. Pigs are
Old World, meaning from Africa, Asia, and Europe, whereas these
peckeries are all New World from North, Central and South America.
So you know, they look a lot alike, but they
really aren't the same and actually chock one way that
you could distinguish them because they do all look like um,

(03:41):
or at least they do bear a similarity to pigs
is that have alina's. Uh, their noses are different. And actually,
now that I say that out loud, and I'm not
sure if pigs all have different noses, but with havilina,
you can basically use it as like a fingerprint for
a human. It's it's that different um, which is pretty cool.
And then tangentially related to that, there, they have a

(04:04):
really great sense of smell because they use musk to
kind of mark territory or say hi to one another. Yeah,
and they're very stinky um. But so they both smell
and they also can smell really well. Get it, I do. Uh.
They're called musk cogs are skunk pigs sometimes because of

(04:27):
that kind of musky nastiness that comes with them. Uh.
And they also sometimes I think, have been confused for rodents.
I'm not really sure how I mean. I guess it
could be a giant rodent, but giant gerbil a gerbil
from Hell. So this expert at least says that it's
a common misconception. So who knows. I guess maybe some
people do think they're rodents. So chuck, since we're just

(04:49):
tossing out facts about Heavelina's um. One of the other
things that I like is that they can't see very well.
They can see about thirty feet away, almost like they're
they're you're sighted, not even almost like they are near sighted.
They rely mostly on smell um. But because of that,
they it's easy for a human to get close to them.

(05:12):
And I'm going to leave it for the other side
of this commercial break to answer whether that's a good
thing or a bad thing for you. The human just

(05:36):
like starts the sky, there is so much stop it's
actually a bad thing. Okay, here we go, got it.
That's a quick answer. It really was. Let me elaborate
the reason why it's bad is because Heavelina's have a

(05:59):
reppie tation at least out west Um for being ferocious,
and that may or may not be uh deserved, you know,
because supposedly people who are have Alina experts like cornuler
Uh and their ilk um say that no, they're they're defensive.
They're defending their territory. More often than not, they're defending

(06:21):
their young. And you've just kind of startled them because
you've gotten you've gotten close to them, and they didn't
notice you there before because they can't see very well.
And now they're saying, back off, our kids are here,
whereas if you're a human, you're just seeing some scary
hell pigs coming at you as a group. Basically, yeah uh.

(06:42):
They are even what is known as even towed ungulates,
which means they are hoofed mammals. But they bear the
weight and this is this gets a little wonky, but
I love it. They bear the weight almost equally on
their third and fourth toes um, rather than like a
horse or a rhinoceros who are toad unguluts, and they
bear most of their weight almost entirely on the third

(07:05):
You know, I saw a really cool documentary on horses
called Equis e q u Us. It's about like the
natural history of the horse and they talk about how
the horse, the feet of the horse is actually just
one toe, so like the horses are walking on four toes.
That's what they walk and run on. Isn't that amazing?

(07:28):
It is? And uh, I love I'm gonna have to
see that documentary. Do they talk about Cumberland Island, Georgia
at all? Yeah? I think they do at some point. Um,
I don't remember where, but yeah, I think so. Yeah.
That is uh if you're listening and you don't know
anything about it. One of our barrier islands here in Georgia,
Cumberland Island is as still has wild horses that roam free. Yeah,

(07:52):
that's amazing. It is amazing. You can see video of them.
You don't even have to go down there for it.
But when when you travel the Gumberland Island, know it's beautiful.
It is. I've never been, I've just seen it on video,
but it looks pretty beautiful. It's great. One of the
things that really struck me, Chuck, was the second part
of that movie. Um is about the the domestication of

(08:16):
horses and how it first happened on the steps of
like Mongolia, that stuff, so I get us. I watched
that documentary and it seemed vaguely familiar to me. Then
next day I was queueing an episode on animal domestication
and we talked about the exact same thing, like six
eight years before. Yeah, see how that happens in that

(08:38):
neat that timing though, from one night to the next day,
bam bam. And then my brain just exploded a little bit.
That Mandela effect. Is that what that is? I don't
think so. I think it's more. Oh, maybe it touches
on bottom mine hoff a little bit. Yeah, that's what
I was thinking. The stuff you should know efect. We
should have our own effect by now. Yeah, I think

(08:59):
so too. And then you're pushing for the star wipe
all these years but a different effect. Yeah, yeah, totally
different meaning of the world. Here's another Havelina back to
Halna is another Havelina factoid. That other thing is kind
of cool is that they are generally herbivores um. They
have these you know, they have kind of the big
canines or like tusks, and you would think, like, boy,

(09:23):
those things are some meat eaters and they will eat
meat like if a if a bird happens to come
a little too close or something. But they're generally trying
to get down there in the roots and fruits and
trying to dig down and eat plants their plan eaters.
I thought you were gonna say something like boots. Oh,
I wish I had another one. Roots shoots, very nice

(09:47):
chuck all right, so um yeah, but yeah, the one
of the experts mentions how they'll sometimes find dove feathers
in the hevelina pen. Yeah, it is a little sad,
but I guess it's an dull course of things, and
they can be a little uh you know, if you
live out in Arizona, you might have stories of them
coming after your dogs because they might think it's a

(10:09):
coyote or something threatening their their pack. Um, and there
are did see some videos of dogs and a fence
with hablinas on the outside of the fence kind of
there they'll get the mohawk like a dog does on
their back with the upset and the hair pokes up.
But um, I also saw a video of aveline and
a dog playing and a field and it was one

(10:30):
of the cutest dang things I've ever seen. Helena was
just bopping him with his head and nosing them, and
the dog was kind of fake biting, and they would
run around and it's just the best. Do you know
what I should search to see that? I would just say,
Hablina dog play, and I bet you that'll take you
right there in boots. In boots, you got anything else

(10:52):
about have Alina's no? I think they're the the unsung
uh heroes of the even todungulate community. Very nice, Well, everybody,
the short stuff is over. This short stuff is out.
Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart

(11:14):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H