A motorist was killed when their car crashed into a wild boar on the M4 in Wiltshire and was then hit by a lorry.
Emergency services were called to the motorway, between junctions 17 (Chippenham) and 16 (Swindon West), just before 19:00 GMT on Monday.
Wiltshire Police said the Seat Ibiza driver, a 47-year-old man from Royal Wootton Bassett, died at the scene.
The eastbound M4 was closed for eight hours after the crash. The lorry driver was treated for minor injuries.
'Rare' incident
A South West Ambulance Service spokeswoman said four ambulances and a doctor were called to the scene.
Sgt Steven Love said: "This is a truly tragic incident and my thoughts are with the family and friends of the victim.
"It is quite rare for a wild boar to be on the carriageway of the motorway. It is more common for the police to receive calls involving horses or deer but each is equally dangerous to motorists.
"This was a particularly large wild animal and would have caused considerable damage to any vehicle."
Police have appealed for witnesses to contact them.-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the wild mammal. For other uses, see Wild boar (disambiguation).
"Boar" redirects here. For other uses, see Boar (disambiguation).
"Wild pig" redirects here. For other uses, see Wild pig (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Feral pig.
| Wild boar Temporal range: Early Pleistocene – Recent | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Indian boar (S. s. cristatus) sow, Anaimalai Hills, southern Western Ghats, India | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Suidae |
| Genus: | Sus |
| Species: | S. scrofa |
| Binomial name | |
| Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758 | |
 | |
| Reconstructed range of wild boar (green) and introduced populations (blue). Not shown are smaller introduced populations in theCaribbean, New Zealand, sub-Saharan Africaand elsewhere.[1] | |
| Synonyms | |
The wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as the wild swine[3] or Eurasian wild pig[4] is a suid native to much of Eurasia, North Africaand the Greater Sunda Islands. Human intervention has spread its range further, thus making the species one of the widest ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widely spread suiform.[4] Its wide range, high numbers and adaptability mean that it is classed as least concern by the IUCN.[1] The animal probably originated in South-East Asia during the Early Pleistocene,[5] and outcompeted other suid species as it spread throughout the Old World.[6]
As of 2005, up to 16 subspecies are recognised, which are divided into four regional groupings based on skull height and lacrimal bone length.[2] The species lives in matriarchal societies consisting of young males, intrarelated females and their young. Fully grown males are usually solitary outside of the breeding season.[7] The grey wolf is the wild boar's main predator throughout most of its range except in the Far East, where it is replaced by the tiger.[8] It has a long history of association with humans, having been the ancestor of most domestic pig breeds and a big game animal for millennia-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_boar
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