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Truffle hunt with sow in the Dordogne region of France. Truffles are group of edible subterranean fungi found anywhere from 2 to 15 inches below the ground, usually in a circular formation about 4 to 5 feet from the base of an oak tree. Highly prized as food they are a rare delicacy reserved for the rich, or used on very special occasions. Looking for truffles in open ground is almost always carried out with specially trained pigs or dogs. Pigs were the most used in the past, but nowadays farmers prefer to use dogs, which do not eat the truffles. Both pigs and dogs have keen senses of smell, but while dogs must be trained to the scent of truffles, female pigs or sows need no training whatsoever. This is due to a compound within the truffle which has an uncanny resemblance to the sex pheromone of male pigs or boars to which the sow is keenly attracted. It may have been the strange attraction that pigs have to these fungi which prompted its discovery by early human populations.