Part of the Tayassuidae family, or the New World pigs, the collared peccary, variously and regionally known as the javelina, the quenk (in Trinidad), saíno, musk hog, or báquiro.

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The collared peccary inhabits a range stretching from Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina in the south through Central America and Mexico to Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas in the north. Due to this, it lives in a variety of habitats, like tropical, subtropical, and temperate broadleaf forests, dry and mesic shrublands, deserts, floodplains, savannas, and grasslands.

 

The collared peccary was thought to have only recently arrived from Mexico into the Southwestern U.S, however, due to recent paleontological findings, we now know that during the Ice Age these peccaries ranged all the way to Florida before they retreated back to Mexico due to either climatic changes or human hunting.

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Collared peccaries consume seeds, berries, tree fruit, calorie-intense mesquite pods, cactus, like prickly pear and agave, roots, bulbs, tubers, fungi, and grasses. While often classified as herbivores due to their plant intense diets, they also opportunistically consume snakes, insects, eggs, frogs, lizards, fish, rodents, and the carrion of small animals like birds.

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The aforementioned name of musk hog is due to its ability to release a potent musk scent when it feels threatened or to mark its territory. It also is able to bark or use its sharp tusks, which underlines the missed opportunity to call it a tusk hog.

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These peccaries are gregarious creatures, living in groups of 6-9, but up to 50, individuals. Like humans, they are active during the day and sleep at night, and rest in burrows, commonly under the burls and roots of trees.

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Collared peccaries are commonly preyed upon by megafaunal predators like wolves (C. lupus baileyi), jaguars, coyotes, cougars, and bobcats. Speculatively, it could have been nocturnally fed on by the extinct giant vampire bat (Desmodus draculae), the largest species of vampire bat ever, and one who likely specialized in feeding on proportionately large megafauna. The collared peccary is native throughout the bat's range, so it's very plausible it was used as a nighttime snack by the massive bat.