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In the title. With the ubiquitous availability of boars to feral orks, would this mean that they are part of the ork ecosystem and yet another int he endless variety of squig, simply large, hairy, four legged ones with pig like snouts but otherwise foul and squiggish dispositions?

Personally I rather like the idea of them being a type of squig. It helps break out of the mould of toothy maw on legs.

I think it's mainly a carry-over from back in WFB (and to some extent now in AoS) because AFAIK, there is nothing in modern 40k to suggest that Feral Orks have instant access to boars when they develop in their environments. It's possible these are only developed in situations that would foster feral Orks, but chances are that since Feral Orks don't generally access or the know-how to build actual vehicles like bikes, that the next closest thing would be to ride the native fauna and boars are already the iconic ork/orc mount so they stuck with it.

'ere we go

Well, "squig" is (or at least, was) orkish short-hand for 'squiggly beast'. "Squiggly beast" isn't a term of Orkish taxonomy, so it doesn't have some strict scientific meaning.

It doesn't appear that boars are part of the orkish fungal ecosystem (in that boars inevitably arrive in environments that can support orkoid spores), but it's not impossible that orks might call boars "squigs".

On the other hand, orks have a term for snakes, despite them clearly being squiggly beasts, too, so it may be that orks would distinguish boars from squigs.

Or it could be similar to the word usage of many regular people, who might tell you that a bird, or an insect, or a worm, wasn't an 'animal', because they were confusing 'animal' with 'mammal', or 'vertebrate'. The ork might insist that snakes and boars were snakes and boars, not squigs, even though their own orkish formal criterion for squig-ness included both snakes and boars.

In short, it sound like something a good punch-up would settle.

They weren't, but I don't think that in the scheme of things retconning them to be squigs is a pretty minor and flavourful option.

They aren't stuck being literal boars then, but something more monstrous and interesting

I have a warboss riding a boar. To me the boar represents his attack squig and waaagh rules.

I’m open to both the ‘abundant star pigs spread by man through the galaxy then gone feral during age of strife’ and the ‘convergent evolution/design squig boar’ theories.

I suspect the ork ecosystem provides some variety of medium mount (like a smaller squiggoth) but the orks wouldn’t be above looting impressive steeds from other biological lines (giant terran bulls and boars).

nareik wrote:
I have a warboss riding a boar. To me the boar represents his attack squig and waaagh rules.

I’m open to both the ‘abundant star pigs spread by man through the galaxy then gone feral during age of strife’ and the ‘convergent evolution/design squig boar’ theories.

I suspect the ork ecosystem provides some variety of medium mount (like a smaller squiggoth) but the orks wouldn’t be above looting impressive steeds from other biological lines (giant terran bulls and boars).

Yup. It's not like orks are going to be concerned about 'invasive species' or 'proper taxonomy''.

1. No they are not squigs.

2. They are introduced to new planets by the orks.