10/30/2022
Help us wish a happy birthday to our trio of peccaries! Chacoan peccary brothers, Ancho & Serrano, turn 9 years old today and their ‘older’ brother, Jalapeño, turned 9 years old on Thursday! 🌶️🎉
Chacoan peccaries are highly social animals and communicate by means of different sounds such as grunting and teeth chattering. In the wild, cacti form the bulk of their diet and provide the peccary with up to 90% of its water needs! They use their leathery snout to roll the cacti on the ground to remove the spines and they have chambered stomachs (like a cow) that helps them to digest such a tough meal. 🌵
Found in the hot scrublands of central South America, these pig-like cactus crunchers are an Endangered species threatened by habitat loss & overhunting. Our spicy trio are a part of a Species Survival Plan (SSP), which maintains the health of the peccary population in accredited zoos.