babirusa

American  

[bab-uh-roo-suh, bah-buh-] / ˌbæb əˈru sə, ˌbɑ bə- /

Or babiroussa,

noun

1. an East Indian swine, Babyrousa babyrussa, the male of which has upper canine teeth growing upward through the roof of the mouth and curving toward the eyes, and lower canine teeth growing upward outside the upper jaw.

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babirusa British  

/ ˌbɑːbɪˈruːsə /

noun

1. a wild pig, Babyrousa babyrussa , inhabiting marshy forests in Indonesia. It has an almost hairless wrinkled skin and enormous curved canine teeth

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Etymology

Origin of babirusa

1690–1700; < Malay, equivalent to babi pig + rusa deer

Example Sentences

In 2014, Dr. Aubert and his colleagues dated the age of a flowstone that covered a picture of a pig-like animal called a babirusa in a cave in Sulawesi.

From New York Times • Nov. 7, 2018

Features on animals such as the babirusa, the pignose frog and the flannel moth “puss” caterpillar are so silly and unwieldy that they could not have been designed with efficiency, logic or aesthetics in mind.

From Scientific American • Oct. 11, 2014

The native flora is rich, and teak, ebony and canari trees are especially abundant; the fauna, which is similarly varied, includes the babirusa, which occurs in this island only of the Moluccas.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various

An approach to this peculiarity is made by the African wart-hogs, in which the upper tusk grows out laterally and then curves up; but these animals are not otherwise closely allied to the babirusa.

From Island Life Or the Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras by Wallace, Alfred Russel

On this latter view we may regard the tusks of the male babirusa as examples of redundant development, analogous to that of the single pair of lower teeth in some of the beaked whales.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" by Various