The Meishan is a breed of domestic pig

Domestic pig

The domestic pig is a domesticated animal that traces its ancestry to the wild boar, and is considered a subspecies of the wild boar or a distinct species in its own right. It is likely the wild boar was domesticated as early as 13,000 BC in the Tigris River basin...

 named for the Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 prefecture of Meishan

Meishan

Meishan , formerly known as Meizhou or Qingzhou , is a prefecture-level city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Sichuan province of the People's Republic of China. Meishan is in the southwest of Sichuan Basin....

. It is a sub-group of the Taihu pig

Taihu pig

The Taihu pig is a domestic breed from the narrow region of mild sub-tropical climate around the Taihu Lake region in the lower Yangtze River valley of China. The breed is a large one, black in colour with a heavily wrinkled face. It has a large head with a broad forehead and large folded ears...

 and is a small to medium-sized breed with large drooping ears, and wrinkled black skin

Native to Southern China, the breed is best known for its large litters of 15-16 piglets. Due to its fecundity, it was imported to the United States in the late 1980s by the USDA Agricultural Research Service

Agricultural Research Service

The Agricultural Research Service is the principal in-house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture . ARS is one of four agencies in USDA's Research, Education and Economics mission area...

. However, it has not found much use in farms, as a result of its slower growth rates and abundance of fat. On the other hand, it reaches maturity very early, and both boars and sows carry traits that make them one of the most prolific breeds in the world.