Domestic Pigs - Classification

Classification

The domestic pig is most often treated as a subspecies of its wild ancestor, the wild boar, which was given the name Sus scrofa by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, in which case its formal name is Sus scrofa domesticus. In 1777, Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben treated the domestic pig as a separate species from the wild boar. He gave it the name Sus domesticus, which is still used by some taxonomists. Wild boar were in human association as early as 13,000–12,700 BC.