Good mourning. You may have read or I may have mentioned, I am working with hogs in the field. That came first. That sparked my interest in keeping a few.



Our local hogs are mexicans. I live at the very western edge of their natural range. Actually they are within 45 miles of my house.



I also have some westerns, which are so very similar and like with many species recent naming, I do not agree with the different species labelling. I am a fan of the old subspecies thing. I mean, its not about all this science, or people making their own reasons to call something something else. SImply put, western hogs and mexicans are 99% alike and actually blend in nature. They the two, are more "alike" then any other snake. Yet by name are different. I understand that any population thats genetically isolated is therefore "different". A new naming catagory is needed. One for taxo boys and another for us common folks.



The new naming approach is useless to the folks that need to look up what they saw/found and is only for taxo boys to play with eachother. In other words, its no longer of utility(of use) which is an important reason for taxonomy. If you have to research the name to understand it, then the naming system fails. Sorry for that.



Anyway, back to diet and scenting. There are populations near here and they do have different base prey items. One has tons of greentoads, the other no greentoads. Of interest the main unique reptile that is at all the most western populations is, BOX TURTLES. There is one local near here where you can find hognose and banded rock rattlesnakes in the same spot. Ones a grassland the other a montane rock dweller(or so its said) just a funny note.



One thing I learned last year was, neonate hogs, at least three that were here, readily consumed earthworms. How funny is that.



I do have a theory, and thats all it is, at this time. I hope to prove it out in the coming years. I think toads and lizards, are not the "important" part of our hogs nature diets. Of course all nature items are important, but in the field we like to find what keys(supports) reproductive events, or replenishs energy lost from those events.



My theory is they consume large amounts of protein from eggs, both bird and reptile eggs. There are indeed records of that, its not established how important it is, as far as I know.



This year, I did get to watch adult females and they did NOT regain weight during the toad season.



In nature, of the feeding events observed, lizard feeding, far and away outnumbered toad feeding.



Thanks for listening. Best wishes

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