 Release most domestic animals in a forest and they will be gone within the year. Cows? Eaten. Chickens? Extra Eaten. But not pigs. Pigs *revert* — they survive and each generation is more close to some lost wild boar ideal form than the next. Why are pigs different? Are they less domesticated? Is it the omnivory? Is it their intelligence? In a few decades people say they need power weapons to protect their families from the pigs. What the heck? (edit: some cows, chickens survive? see replies) 7 comments
 @RogerBW @futurebird @RogerBW @echanda more intelligent, more fecundt, shorter generation time (-> faster evolution), than cows. In addition fewer natural predators than chickens. Cows can go feral too but is easier to track and eliminate. @pms @futurebird @RogerBW @echanda Also significantly less domesticated than cows or chickens (though chickens easily go feral in jungles, closer to their natural habitat). Even in late medieval (and in some places, later) pigs were semi-wild, kept in open forest, not necessarily enclosed. Cows are so domesticated that AFAIK we're not even still sure which animal they came from. @RogerBW i think this plus intelligence - pigs are very smart @futurebird  @futurebird i mean, are cows forest animals? chickens are jungle fowl and specialized in eating bamboo seeds |
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@futurebird Perhaps also: degree of change due to domestication - perhaps the modern farm pig is closer to its wild ancestor than ditto cow because it didn't take as much work to turn it into a farmable animal?