Central European boar
| Central European boar | |
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| S. s. scrofa, Poland | |
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S. s. scrofa
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| Trinomial name | |
| Sus scrofa scrofa Linnaeus, 1758
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Species synonymy[1]
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The Central European boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) is a subspecies of wild boar native to northern Spain, northern Italy, France, Germany, Benelux, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and possibly Albania. It is extinct in the Ireland and Britain.[2] It is a medium-sized, dark to rusty-brown haired subspecies with long and relatively narrow lacrimal bones.[3] In northern Italy, artificially introduced S. s. scrofa have extensively interbred with the smaller sized indigenous S. s. majori populations since the 1950s.[4]
The boar features prominently in Scandinavian, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon culture, with its image having been frequently engraved on helmets, shields and swords. According to Tacitus, the Baltic Aesti featured boars on their helmets, and may have also worn boar masks. The boar and pig were held in particularly high esteem by the Celts, who considered them to be their most important sacred animal. Some Celtic deities linked to boars include Moccus and Veteris. It has been suggested that some early myths surrounding the Welsh hero Culhwch involved the character being the son of a boar god.[5] Nevertheless, the importance of the boar as a culinary item among Celtic tribes may have been exaggerated in popular culture by the Asterix series, as wild boar bones are rare among Celtic archaeological sites, and the few that occur show no signs of butchery, having probably been used in sacrificial rituals.[6]
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Bell, T. (1837), A history of Britisch Quadrupeds including the Cetacea, Van Voorst, pp. 360-361
- ↑ Heptner, V. G. ; Nasimovich, A. A. ; Bannikov, A. G. ; Hoffman, R. S. (1988) Mammals of the Soviet Union, Volume I, Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Libraries and National Science Foundation, pp. 19-82
- ↑ (Italian) Scheggi, Massimo (1999). La bestia nera: Caccia al cinghiale fra mito, storia e attualità. Editoriale Olimpia (collana Caccia). pp. 86–89. ISBN 88-253-7904-8.
- ↑ Mallory, J. P. & Adams, D. Q. (1997), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Taylor & Francis, pp. 426-428, ISBN 1884964982
- ↑ Green, M. (2002), Animals in Celtic Life and Myth, Routledge, p. 46, ISBN 1134665318
External links
Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons
