Tigers and pigs living together? It sounds unusual, but in Thailand a 6-year old tiger is taking care of some piglets as if they were her own.

Saimai lives at a zoo near Bangkok. She has watched the little pigs since she was 2-years old. The tiger, herself, was brought up by a sow.

The piglets are dressed up in tiger outfits for fun, but don’t normally wear the costumes. At the same zoo, a sow nurses her own piglets and two cubs!

Officials at the zoo insist that in Thailand it is common for tigers to nurse pigs and vice versa.

A Dutch scientist claims to have discovered a new species of wild pig nearly twice the size of other pigs in the remote south eastern Amazon region of Brazil.

At four feet long and 90 pounds, the pig dubbed Pecari maximus has been there for a long time and a familiar sight to natives on the basin of the Rio Aripuan?. It is also the latest in a string of new species that Marc van Roosmalen reported to have found since 1996.

In his 20-year-career, van Roosmalen has discovered previously unknown types of monkey, marmoset and porcupine, including the colourfully-named Zog-Zog monkey, or genus Callicebus, and the shallow clear-water adapted Dwarf Manatee.

His findings were published in the Oct. 29 edition of the German scientific journal Bonner Zoologische Beitrage.

The latest discovery of peccary was made by him by accident in 2000, while searching for a new monkey species.

According to him, the new pig species is remarkable for traveling in small groups, usually two adults. It is also sometimes accompanied by one or two offspring, while other types tend to move in large herds.

According to the DNA analysis, the animal diverged from the most closely related species, Pecari tajacu, or collared peccary, about 1 million to 1.2 million years ago, the Associated Press reports.

However, scientists still believe that more research is needed to confirm the species is new. Until now, only three species of peccary were known to science - the collared peccary, the white-lipped peccary and the Chaccoan peccary.

Peccaries, hoofed animals closely related to swine and hippopotami, usually live in large groups. The new giant peccary species, however, is only found in pairs or small family groups.

Jean Wolf’s 10-acre farm off Buffalo Road became a swine sanctuary on Saturday.

Wolf opened her barn doors to nearly 100 pot-bellied pigs that she helped rescue from an Upper Peninsula foreclosed farm whose owner was evicted for not paying back taxes.

The piglets, boars and sows, many underweight and a few injured, traveled 500 miles in a large trailer to greener pastures in Buchanan and hopefully beyond.

They arrived at 9 a.m.

On Friday and early Saturday, Wolf set up two large fenced-in pens.

She and her neighbor, Nancy Lentsch, who lives on a farm just east of Wolf’s, separated the males from the females.

Lentsch agreed to temporarily house the males, called boars, until new homes could be found.

Wolf, meanwhile, has two pens where 30 piglets and sows, four of whom are pregnant, can roam.

She hopes to receive donations to help pay for vaccinations, neutering and spaying for the animals so they can be adopted.

“They are pets. As far as I’m concerned, they are an outdoor pet with indoor privileges,” she explained.

Don’t tell that to Meg Serafino. She and her husband, Ed, who live on a farm in Galien, raised “Petunia,” a household pig, for six years.

The Serafinos helped Wolf unload the pigs.

Meg Serafino said Petunia walked on a leash and came when called.

“She went outdoors when our dogs had to go out,” said Serafino.

Wolf calls Meg a special “pig person” and said most people who raise pot-bellied pigs should keep them outdoors with a large fenced yard that has places for them to cool off in hot weather.

In the animal kingdom’s pecking order, pigs are quite intelligent.

They are about as bright as toddlers, Wolf said.

“They’re curious. It’s like having a bunch of 3-year-olds running around,” she said.

Wolf already has “Big Mac,” a pot-bellied pig she received from a family that grew tired of him. He saunters out from a large dog house with the name “hog heaven” on it when she calls his name, “Mackie” for short.

Wolf is no stranger to the foster parent world of animals.

A few years ago when stray emus got loose in Niles and needed a home, Wolf opened her zoo-like farm to yet another species.

She’s been rescuing pot-bellied pigs for a decade.

Last month, when Wolf heard about the farm in Houghton, Mich., that had livestock that needed homes, she thought she would simply give Diane Trudgeon of the Copper Country Humane Society some prospective homes.

“When I first talked to her, I was just going to give her some leads,” Wolf said, explaining how she became the new foster home for the hogs.

Soon, it became apparent to Wolf that Trudgeon needed more than just prospective solutions.

“Diane doesn’t do placements for livestock. She does cats and dogs,” said Wolf.

The animals needed homes or they would be destroyed.

“I started thinking, ‘Maybe I can do this.’ Then I said, ‘I have to do this.’ I’m an animal lover. It tugged at my heart,” she said.

But she credits Trudgeon for saving the pigs.

“Without Diane’s perseverance, they wouldn’t be here.”

Hopefully not for long.

Wolf said so far she has prospective owners for the pigs in Utah and Wisconsin and a handful of other states.

“They’re coming out of hell. I don’t want them to go back there,” she said.

Trudgeon found homes for a horse, roosters, 29 pigs and some cats and dogs.

But she couldn’t find new homes for about 100 pigs.

“They’re unique animals, they deserve a better life than where they came from,” Wolf said.