Author(s): Lyall Watson

Science & Natural History

George Orwell was right. Pigs are unquestionably the farmyard animal most likely to succeed. But why, exactly? Science has been slow to pin down their superiority. Pigs are dramatically different to their closest and more placid relatives, sheep, deer and cattle. During forty million years of evolution, they seem to have made a series of canny decisions, adapting to changing circumstances much as humans have - by becoming more versatile, more gregarious and more curious. Sixteen species of wild pigs now occupy every continent except Australia and Antarctica, filling in the environmental gaps by deploying a panoply of domestic and feral forms - pigs for all seasons. The Whole Hog is their story. The biologist Lyall Watson has tracked pigs in the wild, observed their resourceful and playful lives, deciphered their grunts and oinks - and is convinced pigs deserve new respect. About the Author: Lyall Watson is a curious naturalist and author of more than twenty books, including Supernature, Lifetide, Lightning Bird and Jacobson's Organ. He divides his time between a farmhouse on the west coast of Ireland and a ranch house in the high desert of New Mexico.