New or undescribed species
The taxonomy within the Suidae is still changing with new insights from morphological and genetic analyses indication significant variation suggesting that certain taxa warrant allocation to species level. None of these new taxa are presently listed by the IUCN, but some could be highly threatened and may require urgent conservation attention. Below some of these new taxa are discussed.
Sus grovesi sp. nov. from the Sulu archipelago in the Philippines
This species was described in 2003 in an unpublished manuscript by Karen Rose and Peter Grubb but their analysis remains to be confirmed through additional craniometric and genetic analysis.
Several proposed taxonomic changes in the Sus scrofa group
Colin Groves and Peter Grubb recently published a significant revision of ungulate taxonomy, which includes several taxonomic proposals for the Suidae. Within Sus scrofa, they proposed the following changes:
(1) Sus moupinensis Milne-Edwards, 1871. Burma/China. Synonymy as in Ellerman & Morrison-Scott (1951), plus canescens Heude, 1897, coreanus Heude, 1897, meles Sowerby, 1917, collinus Heude, 1892. This proposal combines the previously described Sus bucculentus with S. moupinensis. S. bucculentus is still listed on the IUCN Red List, but we will propose that it is included in S. moupinensis, and its conservation status reassessed
(2) Sus chirodontus Heude, 1888. South-Central China. Synonymy as in Ellerman & Morrison-Scott (1953)
(3) Sus ussuricus Heude, 1888. Heilongjiang/Far East. Synonymy as in Ellerman & Morrison-Scott (1953)
Three species of forest hog
Groves and Grubb in their 2011 book on Ungulate Taxonomy proposed recognition of three species of forest hog: Hylochoerus meinertzhageni of the Western Rift Mts, Rwanda, East African region; H. rimator: Central African region; and H. ivoriensis: West Africa (Liberia to Ghana). Groves noted that the latter two are not strongly distinct, and need more study, but H. meinertzhageni is very different from the others.