Warthogs (Phacochoerus africanus)

are not glamorous: the bristly, mud-coloured coat, the odd tuft of hair on the tail and the warts on the face of the male add little to his beauty. A family group trotting across the savannah with tails pointing straight up, piglets following mother single file, is comical rather than poetic.
Warthogs often inhabit burrows dug by aardvarks, relying on these subterranean shelters to protect them from temperature extremes as well as predators. When fleeing from hungry carnivores, the piglets charge head first into the burrow but the adults reverse in after them so they can use their tusks for defence should the pursuer try to follow them in.