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Which wild spp. of Suina = Suiformes eat bones as a component (>1% by fresh mass) of their diet? Supply full references.
The short answer is: for no wild species of Suina (= Suiformes) is there good evidence that bones constitute >1% of the diet by fresh mass on a routine basis.
There is a substantial literature on the diets of wild suids (Suidae) and peccaries (Tayassuidae), but osteophagy (bone-eating) is usually reported as an occasional or opportunistic behavior, not as a quantitatively important dietary component. The one species for which bone-chewing is repeatedly documented is the warthog.
Species with documented osteophagy
Common Warthog
Numerous authors note that warthogs chew or gnaw bones, apparently to obtain calcium, phosphorus, or other minerals.
For example:
“Warthogs will chew animal bones, possibly as a source of calcium and other minerals.”
A veterinary review of wild suids likewise recognizes the species as a grazer but does not treat bones as a major dietary category.
However, I am unaware of any stomach-content, fecal-analysis, or feeding-budget study demonstrating that bone comprises >1% of annual dietary fresh mass in warthogs. The published reports are qualitative.
Other wild suids
The following species are generally described as omnivores consuming vegetation, fruits, roots, fungi, invertebrates, carrion, eggs, and small vertebrates:
Wild Boar
Bearded Pig
Red River Hog
Bushpig
Babirusa
Giant Forest Hog
various warty pigs (Sus spp.)
Yet the major dietary reviews do not list bone as a significant dietary category.
Wild boar are certainly capable of consuming bones when scavenging carcasses, but reviews of hundreds of diet studies generally find diets dominated by plant matter (often around 90% by volume or mass), with animal matter comprising variable but usually much smaller fractions. Bones are not separated as an important dietary class.
Peccaries (Tayassuidae)
For:
Collared Peccary
White-lipped Peccary
Chacoan Peccary
I know of no published dietary study showing bones as >1% of diet. Reviews describe diets dominated by plant material (fruits, seeds, roots, cactus, etc.), with occasional animal matter.
Conclusion
Based on the available quantitative dietary literature:
Species Osteophagy documented? Evidence for >1% of diet by fresh mass?
Common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) Yes, repeatedly reported No quantitative evidence located
Other suids (Sus, Potamochoerus, Hylochoerus, Babyrousa) Occasional consumption possible during scavenging No evidence
Peccaries (Tayassuidae) Very poorly documented No evidence
Therefore, if your criterion is “>1% of diet by fresh mass”, my answer is:
No wild suiform species is presently known from the published dietary literature to meet that threshold. The closest case is the common warthog, for which osteophagy is well documented qualitatively but, as far as I can determine, has not been shown quantitatively to exceed 1% of dietary intake.
References
Kingdon, J. (2015). The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing.
Souron, A. (2017). Diet and ecology of extant and fossil wild pigs. In M. Melletti & E. Meijaard (eds.), Ecology, Conservation and Management of Wild Pigs and Peccaries (pp. 29–38). Cambridge University Press.
Sutherland-Smith, M. (2014). Suidae and Tayassuidae (Wild Pigs, Peccaries). In Fowler’s Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine, Volume 8. Elsevier.
Ballari, S. A., & Barrios-García, M. N. (2014). A review of wild boar Sus scrofa diet and factors affecting food selection in native and introduced ranges. Mammal Review, 44, 124–134.
Encyclopedia of Life Sciences entry “Pigs (Suidae)” (summarizing the primary literature): “Warthogs will chew animal bones, possibly as a source of calcium and other minerals.”
To what extent and degree does the domestic form of Sus scrofa (including all its breeds) eat bones? Supply full references.
Domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus), across essentially all breeds, are capable of extensive bone consumption. However, the degree depends strongly on the size, density, and structure of the bone. The best evidence comes not from nutrition studies but from taphonomic and ethnoarchaeological investigations, where researchers deliberately fed bones to pigs and measured what remained.
Quantitative evidence
The most important study is:
Greenfield, H. J. (1988). “Special Studies: Bone Consumption by Pigs in a Contemporary Serbian Village: Implications for the Interpretation of Prehistoric Faunal Assemblages.” Journal of Field Archaeology 15(4): 473–479. DOI: 10.1179/jfa.1988.15.4.473.
Greenfield experimentally fed domestic pigs bones from sheep, pigs, and cattle. He found:
More than 90% of sheep bones were consumed.
More than 90% of pig bones were consumed.
Less than 10% of cattle bones were consumed.
The difference arose because pigs preferentially consumed:
smaller bones,
epiphyses,
vertebrae,
cancellous (“spongy”) bone,
marrow-containing portions.
Dense cortical portions of large cattle limb bones were often left behind.
Ability to consume entire skeletons
Pigs are not merely nibblers of bone. They possess:
powerful masseter and temporalis musculature,
bunodont crushing molars,
considerable bite force.
They can break and swallow substantial quantities of skeletal material. Modern forensic experiments demonstrate that domestic pigs will consume flesh, bones, and teeth when offered carcasses. Some skeletal elements survive passage through the digestive tract, but many are fragmented and partially digested.
For example:
Britt et al. (2023). “A casework study: The effect of the porcine digestive process on animal carcasses and human teeth.” Forensic Science International 345:111617. DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2023.111617. The authors explicitly note that pigs consumed “bones, teeth and flesh” of carcass analogues.
Nutritional significance
Bone consumption is not normally a major component of commercial pig diets. Nevertheless, pigs readily exploit bones as sources of:
calcium,
phosphorus,
marrow fat,
residual soft tissues.
The fact that fish-bone meal can serve as an effective calcium source for growing pigs demonstrates that porcine digestion can efficiently utilize skeletal mineral matter.
Breed differences
I am unaware of any study demonstrating significant breed-level differences in osteophagy among domestic pigs. The behaviour appears to be a general feature of Sus scrofa domesticus, deriving from the ancestral wild boar’s opportunistic omnivory.
Differences among breeds are likely quantitative rather than qualitative:
large commercial breeds may crush larger bones simply because of greater body size,
miniature breeds would be mechanically limited,
but all retain the same fundamental ability.
No published evidence suggests that any domestic breed has lost the capacity to consume bone.
Overall assessment
If one asks, “To what extent do domestic pigs eat bones?”, the answer is:
Small and medium bones: often consumed almost completely.
Bones rich in cancellous tissue: strongly preferred and usually destroyed.
Large dense limb bones of cattle-sized animals: only partly consumed.
Entire carcasses: pigs can consume most skeletal elements, fragmenting and digesting many of them.
Across breeds: osteophagy appears essentially universal in domestic pigs.
The best quantitative figure presently available is Greenfield’s finding that domestic pigs consumed over 90% of sheep and pig bones offered to them, but less than 10% of large cattle bones.
References
Greenfield, H. J. 1988. Special Studies: Bone Consumption by Pigs in a Contemporary Serbian Village: Implications for the Interpretation of Prehistoric Faunal Assemblages. Journal of Field Archaeology 15(4): 473–479. DOI: 10.1179/jfa.1988.15.4.473.
Britt, J., et al. 2023. A casework study: The effect of the porcine digestive process on animal carcasses and human teeth. Forensic Science International 345:111617. DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2023.111617.
Malde, M. K., Graff, I. E., Siljander-Rasi, H., Venäläinen, E., Julshamn, K., Pedersen, J. I., & Valaja, J. 2010. Fish bones – a highly available calcium source for growing pigs. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition 94:e66–e76. DOI: 10.1111/j.1439-0396.2009.00979.x.
To what extent and degree does the wild, ancestral form of Sus scrofa eat bones? Include all wild populations of S. scrofa across the vast range of the species. Supply full references.
The short answer is that wild Sus scrofa is not a habitual osteophage in the sense of a hyena, bearded vulture, or porcupine, but it does eat bones opportunistically across much of its range, especially when scavenging carcasses. The evidence suggests that bone consumption is real and widespread, but quantitatively minor relative to the species’ overall diet.
What do diet studies show?
The two major reviews of wild-boar feeding ecology agree that Sus scrofa is an exceptionally omnivorous species. Across Eurasia (and introduced populations), stomach-content and faecal studies consistently record consumption of vertebrate material, carrion, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and a wide variety of plant foods. Animal matter is usually a minority component by bulk, but can become locally important.
Schley & Roper’s review of Western European populations found that wild boar routinely consume mammals and carrion in addition to living prey.
Ballari & Barrios-García’s broader review, covering native and introduced populations, similarly concluded that wild boar exploit virtually all available food categories and readily scavenge carcasses.
Do they actually eat bones?
Yes, but the distinction between scavenging carcasses and actively seeking bones is important.
When feeding on carcasses, wild boar frequently ingest:
periosteum,
cartilage,
marrow,
epiphyses of small bones,
fragmented bone pieces attached to soft tissues.
Their dentition is fully capable of crushing cancellous bone and epiphyses, although not of systematically reducing large limb bones as hyenas do.
Published diet studies occasionally report bone fragments in stomach contents, but usually without quantifying them separately because they are treated as part of carrion consumption. The literature therefore provides strong evidence for incidental and opportunistic osteophagy, but relatively little evidence for specialized bone-feeding.
Is there evidence for deliberate osteophagy?
There are scattered reports from hunters, wildlife managers, and zoo biologists of wild boar chewing:
shed antlers,
dry bones,
skeletal remains at carcass sites.
These observations are generally interpreted as attempts to obtain:
calcium,
phosphorus,
sodium,
trace minerals,
or simply as exploratory feeding behaviour typical of pigs.
However, unlike porcupines (Hystrix, Erethizon) or giraffes, there is no substantial body of literature showing that wild Sus scrofa routinely seeks out bones as a major nutrient source.
Thus, the evidence supports:
Behaviour Evidence
Eating bone fragments while scavenging Strong
Consuming marrow-containing bones Strong
Gnawing bones occasionally Moderate
Regular osteophagy as a major dietary strategy Weak
Dependence on bones for mineral nutrition No convincing evidence
Across the species’ range
The native range of Sus scrofa extends from western Europe across temperate and tropical Asia to North Africa.
Despite enormous ecological variation, diet studies from Europe, the Caucasus, Russia, India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia consistently portray the species as:
primarily plant-feeding,
strongly opportunistic,
readily scavenging vertebrate carcasses when available.
Consequently, there is every reason to expect bone consumption wherever carcasses are exploited, but no evidence that any major wild population has evolved into a specialized bone-eater.
Overall assessment
If one had to assign a qualitative estimate:
0–1% of annual intake would probably be a reasonable order-of-magnitude estimate for bone itself in most populations.
Consumption of carcasses containing bone may occasionally be much higher.
Osteophagy is facultative and opportunistic, not a defining feature of the species’ feeding ecology.
In other words, the ancestral wild boar is best described as a generalist omnivore that sometimes eats bones, rather than as an osteophagous mammal.
References
Ballari, S. A. & Barrios-García, M. N. (2014). A review of wild boar Sus scrofa diet and factors affecting food selection in native and introduced ranges. Mammal Review, 44, 124–134. DOI: 10.1111/mam.12015.
Schley, L. & Roper, T. J. (2003). Diet of wild boar Sus scrofa in Western Europe, with particular reference to consumption of agricultural crops. Mammal Review, 33, 43–56. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2907.2003.00010.x.
For a broad treatment of the species’ geographic variation and range:
Albarella, U., Dobney, K. & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2009). Size and shape of the Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), with a view to the reconstruction of its Holocene history. Environmental Archaeology, 14, 103–136.
For the overall distribution and ecology of the species:
Wild boar.
Posted on June 19, 2026 07:29 AM by
milewski