''Babyrousa bolabatuensis'', the Bola Batu babirusa,Grubb, 2005, p. 637 is a species of

babirusa The babirusas, also called deer-pigs ( id, babi rusa), are a genus, ''Babyrousa'', in the swine family found in the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Togian, Sula and Buru. All members of this genus were considered part of a single species unti ...

from the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n island of Sulawesi. It was first described in 1950 as a subspecies of ''

Babyrousa babyrussa The Buru babirusa (''Babyrousa babyrussa'') is a wild pig-like animal native to the Indonesian islands of Buru, the two Sula Islands of Mangole and Taliabu. It is also known as the Moluccan babirusa, golden babirusa or hairy babirusa. Tradition ...

'', then the only recognized species of babirusa, and raised to species rank by

Colin Groves Colin Peter Groves (24 June 1942 – 30 November 2017) was a British-Australian biologist and anthropologist. Groves was Professor of Biological Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Education Born in Englan ...

and Erik Meijaard in 2002.Meijaard and Groves, 2002, p. 33 At present the Bola Batu babirusa is only known for certain from subfossil remains from the southern arm of Sulawesi. Based on a single skull from central Sulawesi it has been suggested that babirusas from this part of Sulawesi represent an extant population of the Bola Batu babirusa, and this was followed in the third edition of ''

Mammal Species of the World ''Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference'' is a standard reference work in mammalogy giving descriptions and bibliographic data for the known species of mammals. It is now in its third edition, published in late 2005, ...

''. However, the most recent major review also found similarities between the central Sulawesi specimen and the Togian babirusa, leading them to conclude that it represents an undescribed

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

and that the taxonomic position of central Sulawesi babirusas only can be determined through additional specimens. Subfossil remains from the south-western arm of Sulawesi, where now likely extinct, have been classified as Bola Batu babirusas, but these were considered unclassifiable in 2002, as were extant populations from the eastern arm of Sulawesi and

Buton Buton (also Butung, Boeton or Button) is an island in Indonesia located off the southeast peninsula of Sulawesi. It covers roughly 4,727 square kilometers in area, or about the size of Madura; it is the 129th largest island in the world and ...

due to the lack of specimens.Meijaard and Groves, 2002, p. 38 Due to these uncertainties, the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

provisionally synonymized ''B. bolabatuensis'' under the northern Sulawesi species, '' B. celebensis'', pending clarification of the taxonomy of Sulawesi babirusas.Macdonald et al., 2008

References

Literature cited

*Groves, C. 1980. Notes on the systematics of ''Babyrousa'' (Artiodactyla, Suidae). Zoologische Mededelingen 55:29–46. * Grubb, P. 2005. Order Artiodactyla. Pp. 637–722 in Wilson, D.E. and Reeder, D.M. (eds.)
Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference. 3rd ed.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. *Macdonald, A.A., Burton, J. and Leus, K. 2008. . In IUCN. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2009.2.
www.iucnredlist.org
. Downloaded on January 19, 2010. *Meijaard, E. & Groves, C. 2002. Upgrading three subspecies of babirusa (''Babyrousa'' sp.) to full species level. Asian Wild Pig News 2(2):33–39. Mammals of Sulawesi Suidae Fossil taxa described in 1950 Endemic fauna of Indonesia {{Suidae-stub