\u201cThey look similar to pigs, but they\u2019re actually more closely related to whales and hippos,\u201d Wooten told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cThey were one of the largest things capable of eating meat in their ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wooten\u2019s study focused on the teeth of hell pigs, including specimens in the collections of the University of Wyoming\u2019s Geological Museum. She studied the microwear on the tooth surfaces of multiple species to get an idea of what they were biting and crunching.<\/p>\n
Even she was surprised by the results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shocked,\u201d she said. \u201cWe found a really interesting phenomenon that is uncommon in modern mammals. In fact, we actually see the exact opposite. It\u2019s surprising and really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Hell-Pig-Archaeotherium_sp._TMP_2019.003.0004_Royal_Tyrrell_Museum_Drumheller_Alberta_2025-07-13-6.2.jpeg\")
An Archaeotherium skeleton on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Alberta, Canada. The Hell Pig Person<\/p>\n
Hell pigs are an extinct group of large mammals that were widespread in North America, Europe and Asia from 36 to 19 million years ago. The first fossils were found near Fort Laramie in 1850. A food cache fossil is on display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis.<\/p>\n
These had enormous heads with thick jaws and powerful teeth. If that wasn\u2019t frightening enough, the largest entelodonts could grow to the size of a horse.<\/p>\n
Hell pigs weren’t quite that big, but it was one of the largest and most successful mammals in North America during the Eocene and Oligocene periods. Its fossils are common in the White River Formation<\/a>, which stretches across the western U.S.<\/p>\n Wooten became enamored with \u201chell pigs\u201d when she saw their massive skeletons at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as a child. \u00a0Her latest research is the first chapter of her Ph.D. dissertation on hell pigs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I go to conferences, I\u2019ll tell people when and what I\u2019m presenting, and they\u2019ll say, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re the hell-pig person,\u2019 and get really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n That excitement stems from the fact that while hell pits and other like creatures are legendary in paleontology, there\u2019s been little research done on them. Wooten\u2019s focus on the paleoecology of hell pigs is, in many ways, the first of its kind.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything else has been inferred by looking at and measuring bones,\u201d she said. \u201cI’m taking a more quantitative approach, and that\u2019s excited a lot of people because we\u2019ll get to learn a little bit more about a truly lost lineage.\u201d<\/p>\n You\u2019ll Wreck Your Teeth<\/p>\n Modern pigs aren\u2019t picky. They\u2019ll eat anything, making them true omnivores.<\/p>\n Hell pigs aren\u2019t really pigs, but it\u2019s always been assumed that they were similarly omnivorous. The first step in Wooten\u2019s research was to see whether she could support or refute that idea by becoming a prehistoric dentist.<\/p>\n \u201cDental microwear texture analysis can’t tell us what an animal was eating, but it can tell us the texture of what the animal was eating,\u201d she said. \u201cSince the diet of entelodonts has been contested, we thought it\u2019d be interesting to see if we could figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n Wooten scanned and studied 53 hell pig teeth from 13 co-existing species in the collections of the UW Geological Museum, the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.<\/p>\n The fossilized teeth Wooten used for her study came from South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, and Oregon, with a handful from Wyoming.<\/p>\n Teeth wear differently depending on diet. But studying the distinct patterns of microwear on the hell pig teeth, Wooten could determine whether each individual was primarily eating brittle items, like bones, browses, and seeds, or tough items like flesh and grass.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s why it’s important that we compare the microwear on the fossilized teeth to modern animals,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know what modern animals are eating. If we can see similarities in microwear texture, you can infer what the prehistoric animals were eating.\u201d<\/p>\n Wooten had an idea of what she\u2019d see on the teeth. What she exactly saw subverted her scientific expectations.<\/p>\n After examining the dental microwear texture on the teeth of hell pigs and comparing that with that of modern animals, clear patterns emerged. They weren\u2019t the patterns Wooten was expecting.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really expecting to scan these and come out with everything that was eating super hard things,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen the results came back, I was shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n Several teeth showed the telltale textures of a bony diet, comparable to the teeth of modern hyenas. Others showed little to no evidence of anything hard in their diet, with microwear comparable to that of modern cheetahs.<\/p>\n Wooten decided to explore these differences until she found an explanation.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I was exploring these differences, I discovered a body-size difference,\u201d she said. \u201cI ran all the statistics with the body size separated into smaller and larger, and that’s when I found that there was this significant difference in diet.\u201d<\/p>\n Wooten\u2019s conclusion was that the smaller hell pigs were eating tougher food while the bigger ones were eating whatever they could. That\u2019s an anomaly in modern ecosystems.<\/p>\n \u201cLarger animals actually eat softer foods because they have the liberty of eating softer foods,\u201d she said. \u201cSmaller animals eat whatever they can get because they’re not as advantaged as the larger animals. That\u2019s what we expect to see in nature. The opposite is fairly uncommon.\u201d<\/p>\n Wooten also noted that this size-diet split was tied to species, not age. Smaller species of hell pig had softer diets, while larger species had harder diets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe larger-bodied individuals ate like hyenas, but the small-bodied individuals ate like cheetahs,\u201d she said. \u201cCheetahs are exclusively flesh eaters, so it\u2019s possible the smaller Archaeotherium were exclusive flesh eaters, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Gimme, Gimme!<\/p>\n With this intriguing diet disparity determined by body size, it\u2019s only natural to speculate what that could reveal about the biology and behavior of hell pigs.<\/p>\n Wooten doesn\u2019t want to jump to conclusions, but she did say the differences in the diet could have been partially caused by a common behavior scientists see in many modern ecosystems: kleptoparasitism.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a big word for big animals stealing food from small animals. Wyomingites can see it happen all the time in places like Yellowstone National Park.<\/p>\n \u201cBears will scare wolves, lynxes, or pumas from their kills and eat the remains,\u201d Wooten said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re scavenging, you eat bone even if you don\u2019t really mean to.\u201d<\/p>\n Wooten referenced a fossil from the White River Formation that suggests the same behavior. It\u2019s believed to be a hell pig food cache<\/a>, containing several partial skeletons of Poebrotherium, a small prehistoric camel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe camels were killed by a bite to the head and neck,\u201d she said. \u201cThe meatier portion of their bodies \u2014 the butt \u2014 was eaten, while front portions, the head and arms, were dragged back to a meat cache.\u201d<\/p>\n This fossil has been cited as evidence of active hunting by hell pig mortoni, which Wooten called \u201cthe smallest of the smaller-bodied Archaeotherium species.\u201d<\/p>\n The butt-less Poebrotherium food cache might give more credence to kleptoparasitism among hell pig species. If the camels were killed by a smaller-bodied species, it would align with what Wooten discovered from her dental microwear analysis.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe the smaller ones would run and actively hunt their food, and the larger ones could have scared them off and consumed their kills,\u201d Wooten said. \u201cIt’s really hard to have two different kinds of animals that are living at the same place at the same time, because then they’re constantly going to be fighting for resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Wooten has learned a lot from the dental microwear analysis of hell pig teeth. The next step in her research is more in-depth dentistry.<\/p>\n \u201cThe next step is using stable isotope analysis to put more of the puzzle pieces together,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019ll give me a better picture of what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Brynn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Hell-Pig-79A8CAFE-8315-44DA-BDE7-BF0B2D5FA16D-1-6.27.26.jpeg\")
Brynn Wooten inspecting an Archaeotherium skull in the collections of the University of Nebraska State Museum. (Brynn Wooten)Who\u2019s Eating What<\/p>\n![\"Brynn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Hell-Pig-CA5ABF98-14B5-4F64-8BE5-EB3C77F6817F-1-1-6.27.26.jpeg\")
Brynn Wooten measuring the lower jaw of an Archaeotherium with digital calipers at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. (Brynn Wooten)A Closer Look<\/p>\n