Photo borrowed from www.hedweb.com

I first saw this animal way back as a teenager in my favorite English zoo, Chester Zoo.

Wandering around with bulging eyes and an amazed complexion about me, I stumbled across some kind of squirrel like rodent from Africa (I’ll edit this and add the name if I ever remember). Watching them skip about like monkeys above me I started looking around to see what other activities the were partaking in.

To my surprise, sitting on the ground, with one of these squirrel like creatures snuggled in it’s belly, there was a very large looking sheep like creature carrying a rats head on it’s shoulders. I was perplexed and did not know what to make of it. So I gathered my senses and mustered all my intelligence to make my next move. Strategically and wearily I made my way over the small tablet of wisdom that explained to me exactly what this frankensteined creature was. Strangely the African rodents had been paired in this enclosure with the Capybara, a South American Animal. But they seemed to be getting along just fine. A fine example to all of us.

I know what you are thinking… Enough of the fancy, silly stories, give me the facts!

Ok… here goes.

Scientific name: Hydrochaeris (Greek for waterhog)
Countries of origin: South America
Species: Rodent
Weight and size: Adults can grow up to 65kg and 130cm in length (The biggest living Rodent on the planet!)
(If you think anymore details should be here then just leave a comment and I will add find out and add it)

The Capybara resides in South American countries including Argentine, Brazil and Venezuela and is a semi aquatic, huge, rodent that feeds on a herbivore diet of grasses, aquatic plants, fruits and tree bark. They have webbed feet, no tail and eyes and nostril on the top of their head ideal for their wet life.

Sadly Anacondas find them very tasty so they have to be worried about that but jaguar, puma, ocelot, eagle and caiman are also on the hunt for them as well as pesky humans hunting them mainly for meat and their skin. Their skin has the strange property that it only stretches in one direction, making it perfect fine glove use.

Luckily the Capybara is not on the endangered list and governments have put measures in place to ensure that poaching and over harvesting does not lead to it’s extinction.

Whilst researching for this short article I came across a hilarious and strange story from www.bio.davidson.edu. Europeans exploring Central and South American put in a petition to the Roman Catholic church to change the Capybara classification to a fish so that they could it’s it’s rich meat. Even stranger the Catholic Church said yes! And Catholics today can and still do eat this poor Rodent during this period.

They live in large social groups in dense forest covered areas near bodies of water and river and can be very vocal. I would love to go to a Brazilian rain forest and actually see these blighter’s in action and even though they eat their own feces (to aid digestion) I have a huge soft spot for them. I would definitely say they are my favorite rodent and they easily make it into my favorite animal list (although the list will be about 1000 animals long!).

Sadly I have to face up to the fact that the Random Forest is virtual but still I am clearing a space for them and they are welcome to graze here any time they like.

If you found this brief introduction interesting then definitely check out my sources and learn more about these beautiful giant rats.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara
http://www.chesterzoo.org/AnimalsandPlants/Mammals/Rodents/Capybara.aspx
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2002/Willoughby/other.html
http://www.hedweb.com/animimag/capybara.jpg

As you know this is my first animal article. If you can make any suggestions for improvement or things you would like to see if the future then please drop a comment. Thanks for reading.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.