Although they look very much like pigs, and are sometimes called New World pigs, peccaries aka javelinas belong to their own distinct family, Tayassuidae. Pigs belong to the family Suidae and about 30 million years of evolution separates the two families that together make up the Suina clade. While all true pig species hail from the Old World, all extant peccary species come from the Americas, although the family originally evolved in Europe.