Tag Archives: capybara

Episode 409: Guinea Pigs and Capybaras

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Thanks to Mary, Mila, and Riley for their suggestions this week!

Further reading:

Comfortable and dermatological effects of hot spring bathing provide demonstrative insight into improvement in the rough skin of Capybaras

Comfort of capybaras determined by SCIENCE:

An especially attractive guinea pig:

Guinea pigs come in lots of colors, patterns, and fur types [picture taken from this excellent site]:

Show transcript:

Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.

This week we’re going to learn about two rodents, one small and one big. Thanks to Mary and Mila who both suggested the guinea pig, and thanks to Riley who suggested the capybara.

This episode is a bit unusual because part of it comes from a Patreon episode from 2023. Like, literally a big chunk of this episode is the original audio from that one, and you’ll be able to tell the difference in audio and know just how lazy I was this week. The episode actually came together in an unusual way too. Riley’s parent emailed me last week with some new suggestions, including capybaras, but wasn’t sure if we had already covered the topic. I thought we had, but of course there’s always more to learn about an animal. Well, since this is the beginning of a new month I was on the Patreon page to upload the December episode, and while I was there I did a quick search for capybaras and discovered the episode I was thinking of. I decided to add some more information about guinea pigs to it since I already mention guinea pigs a lot in that episode, and here is the result!

The capybara is a rodent, and a very big one. It is, in fact, the biggest rodent alive today. To figure out just how big the capybara is, picture a guinea pig. The guinea pig is also a rodent, native to the Andes Mountains in South America. No one’s sure why the guinea pig is called that in English, since it doesn’t come from Guinea and doesn’t have anything to do with anything else called guinea, but as someone who had two pet guinea pigs when I was a kid, I know exactly why they’re called guinea pigs. This is what an actual pig sounds like:

[pig squealing]

And this is what a guinea pig sounds like:

[guinea pig squealing]

Also, it’s sort of shaped like a pig. The guinea pig is a chonky little animal with short legs, only a little stub of a tail, and little round ears. Its face is sort of blocky in shape and it has a big rounded rump, similar to that of a capybara. The guinea pig is actually closely related to the capybara, and is a pretty good-sized rodent in its own right. It grows about 10 inches long, or 25 cm, on average, and roughly half that size tall.

The guinea pig has been domesticated for at least 7000 years, but it wasn’t domesticated for people to keep it as a pet. In South America and many other places now, it’s a very small farm animal raised for its meat. Guinea pig has been an important source of protein for all that time, so important that it was considered sacred in many cultures.

In the early 16th century when Europeans started arriving in South America, sailors took guinea pigs with them on ships so they’d have fresh meat on the voyage. But when the cute little animals arrived in Europe, people started buying them as pets.

Guinea pigs eat plants, mostly grass, and are social animals. If you want a pet guinea pig, make sure to get at least two. Like rabbits and some other animals, including the capybara, the guinea pig excretes special pellets that aren’t poop, but are semi-digested pellets of food. The guinea pig eats the pellets so they can pass through the digestive system again and the body can extract as many nutrients as possible from it. What’s left is then excreted as a regular poop pellet.

Even in places where the guinea pig is routinely kept as livestock and eaten, people breed guinea pigs as pets too. The pet variety is smaller than the meat variety and has different markings and different colors. Guinea pigs naturally have short, smooth hair and are usually reddish-brown in color, but different colors, fur length and texture, and white markings have been bred into different varieties. There are even mostly hairless varieties.

Most people these days are familiar with what a guinea pig looks like, but most people are not familiar with what a capybara looks like.

So, picture a guinea pig. Now, imagine it growing and growing and growing until it’s the size of a large dog. Instead of orange and white, or black and white, or any of the other colors and patterns of a pet guinea pig, imagine its fur as being a solid rusty-brown color. The capybara can grow almost 4.5 feet long, or 134 cm, and can stand up to two feet tall, or 62 cm. That is a big rodent!

The capybara lives throughout most of South America, although it doesn’t live in the Andes or in Patagonia. It’s semi-aquatic and spends a lot of time in the water, sometimes even sleeping in the water with just its nose poking up so it can breathe. It can hold its breath for up to five minutes, and of course it swims extremely well. It even has webbed toes. It eats a lot of water plants and also eats grass, fruit, and other plants and plant parts.

The capybara has some features that are typical of rodents, like its teeth. Rodent teeth grow continuously since they’re easily worn down by chewing, especially chewing tough plants like grass. It also has some features that are uncommon in rodents. For instance, it can’t synthesize vitamin C, a trait it shares with the guinea pig and with humans. If a capybara kept in captivity isn’t given fruit and other foods that contain vitamin C, eventually it will develop scurvy.

But the capybara doesn’t otherwise have any resemblance to a pirate. It’s a sociable animal and famously chill. In the wild it lives in groups that can number up to 100 individuals, although up to 20 is more common.

The capybara has a scent gland on its nose called a morillo. The female has a morillo but the male’s is bigger since he scent marks more often by rubbing the gland on plants, trees, rocks, other capybaras, and so on. During mating season, the female capybara attracts a male by whistling through her nose, because who doesn’t like a lady who can whistle through her nose? The capybara will only mate in water, so if a female decides she doesn’t like a male, she just gets out of the water and walks away from him.

The female usually gives birth to four or five babies in one litter. Females with babies, called pups, help care for the babies of their friends. Most often, the pups who are too young to wander around without someone to watch them carefully, stay in a group. One or two females remain close to the pups to watch them while the other mothers find food, and the babysitters trade out every so often. When a capybara pup gets hungry, if its mother isn’t nearby, another lactating female will allow the pup to drink some of her milk. This is rare in most animals, since producing milk takes a lot of energy and a mother animal naturally wants to expend her energy on her own babies. But it’s beneficial for the whole group for capybara pups to be cared for by all the mothers.

Capybaras are big enough that adults have a certain amount of protection from predators, but they do have to worry about animals like jaguars, caimans, and anacondas. Smaller predators like eagles will eat capybara pups if they can catch them. Fortunately the capybara can swim fast and run fast, and with everyone in its group watching out for danger, it’s a lot safer than it is by itself.

The capybara does well in captivity and is a popular animal in zoos, and in some zoos you might even be able to pet one. You’ve probably seen pictures of capybaras relaxing in what looks like a big outdoor tub with tangerines floating in it, or if you’re from Japan or just familiar with Japanese customs, relaxing in a yuzu bath. Hot springs baths, called onsen, are popular in Japan, and in winter when the days are short and chilly, adding a citrus fruit called yuzu to the bath is supposed to help prevent colds and help moisturize the skin. Some zoos in Japan now extend this custom to capybaras, because it’s adorable.

As an added bonus, it turns out that the yuzu bath is really good for the capybara. The capybara is a warm-weather animal, and winters in Japan can be very cold and dry. As a result, the capybara’s skin becomes dry too. Soaking in natural hot springs, with or without yuzu, restores the capybara’s skin to its normal condition, which is a lot more comfortable for the capybara and helps it stay healthy. We know this is the case because of a study published in December 2021 in the journal Nature.

Before we go, here’s one last interesting fact about the guinea pig, to bring us back to the beginning of this episode. The guinea pig is a fully domesticated animal and its wild ancestor appears to have gone extinct. There are related species that resemble a guinea pig, but there are no wild guinea pigs in the world today.

You can find Strange Animals Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net. That’s blueberry without any E’s. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, email us at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com. We also have a Patreon at patreon.com/strangeanimalspodcast if you’d like to support us for as little as one dollar a month and get monthly bonus episodes.

Thanks for listening!

Episode 157: Rodents of Unusual Size

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Uh, yeah, not the legless lizard episode. But just as interesting! This week let’s learn about the largest rodents in the world! Hint: way bigger than a rat.

Further reading:

Rodents of Uncertain Systematics

The mellow and photogenic capybara:

Oh to be a capybara in an open bath with an orange on its head:

Hey, pacarana:

Oh to be a paca with half an orange:

Oh to be a chevrotain with a piece of orange. (The chevrotain is not a rodent. It has hooves. Episode 116 explains this creature):

Show transcript:

Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw.

Yes, I know, last week I said we might have an episode this week about legless lizards and other snakey things that aren’t snakes, but I got this episode ready first so instead, this week we’re going to learn about some rodents of unusual size!

Rodents are mammals in the order Rodentia, and there are thousands of them throughout the world. Mice and rats are rodents, of course, but so are chipmunks and squirrels, hamsters and gerbils, prairie dogs and guinea pigs, and many others. But you may notice that all the animals I just mentioned are pretty small. That’s because most rodents are on the small side. But not all of them.

The biggest rodent alive today may be one you’ve heard of, the capybara. It’s native to much of South America and lives in forests, rainforests, and other areas, but always near water. It really likes water and eats a lot of aquatic plants, although it also eats grass, fruit, tree bark, and other plants. Like other rodents, its teeth grow throughout its life but constantly wear down as it eats tough plants.

So how big is the capybara? It grows to about two feet tall, or 62 cm, and four feet long, or 1.3 meters. Females are usually a little larger than males. Basically they’re the size of a big dog, but a big dog with webbed toes, small ears, big blunt muzzle, basically no tail, and a calm outlook on life. Because unlike many rodents who tend to be nervous and quick-moving, the capybara is pretty chill.

The capybara is semiaquatic and likes to hang out in the water, often in social groups. It can hold its breath underwater for up to five minutes, and can even sleep while submerged with just its nose above water. That’s why its nose, eyes, and ears are close to the top of its head, so it can be alert to predators while remaining safely underwater.

The capybara has a scent gland on its nose called a morillo. The female has a morillo but the male’s is bigger since he scent marks more often by rubbing the gland on plants, trees, rocks, other capybaras, and so on. During mating season, the female capybara attracts a male by whistling through her nose, because who doesn’t like a lady who can whistle through her nose? The capybara will only mate in water, so if a female decides she doesn’t like a male, she just gets out of the water and walks away from him.

The female usually gives birth to four or five babies in one litter. If the female is a member of a group of capybaras, all the babies stay together in the middle of the group and all the females care for them. In most mammals, the female will only let her own babies drink her milk, but a female capybara will suckle any babies in the group who are hungry. Like I said, they’re pretty chill.

There are actually two species of capybara, but some people consider the lesser capybara to be a subspecies of capybara and anyway, we don’t know much about it. Other than that, though, the capybara is most closely related to the guinea pig. Like the guinea pig and like humans, the capybara can’t synthesize vitamin C in its body and has to get it through its diet. That means if a capybara in captivity doesn’t receive fruit and other plant material containing vitamin C, eventually it will show symptoms of scurvy.

The capybara is killed for its meat and hide, but it’s also sometimes kept as a pet. It’s not a domesticated animal and it’s as heavy as a full-grown human, so while the capybara isn’t specifically dangerous it’s not really a good pet. Also, it will eat your garden and wallow in mud and if you don’t have a pool it’s going to wander around until it finds one. It’s probably better to get a dog.

While the capybara is a strong swimmer, it can move fast on land when it wants to. It can run up to 22 miles per hour, or 35 km/hour. This is what a capybara sounds like.

[capybara sounds]

Big as the capybara is, even bigger rodents used to live in South America. Around 8 million years ago a rodent called Phoberomys pattersoni [foe-barommis] lived in what is now Venezuela and nearby areas, especially around the Orinoco River. It was discovered in 2000 when an almost complete skeleton was found, and it was really big. We’re talking nine feet long, or 2.75 meters, and that doesn’t even include its tail. It stood over four feet tall, or 1.3 meters. It was described in 2003 and is a relative of guinea pig and the capybara.

But since then, paleontologists have found fossils of rodents that are estimated to be even bigger. Around 3 million years ago an animal called the giant pacarana grew to an estimated five feet tall, or 1.5 meters, with a body ten feet long, or 3 m. But we don’t know for sure if it was bigger or smaller than that estimate, since so far all we have is a fossilized skull discovered in 1987 and described in 2008. Another closely related rodent is only known from some teeth. Some researchers think it used its massive teeth like elephants use their tusks, to fend off predators and fight each other.

So if there was once a giant pacarana, what’s a regular pacarana? It’s another South American rodent, and while it’s not exactly capybara size it’s much larger than a mouse. It grows more than 3 ½ feet long, or 100 cm, and is shaped sort of like a capybara with a tail, although its head is more rodent-like. It’s dark brown-gray with rows of white spots down its sides and a thick tail covered with fur. It’s the only living member of the family Dinomyidae and it has many unusual features compared to other rodents. I’d tell you what they are but they’re all things like “it has a flatter sternum,” which wouldn’t mean a whole lot to most of us. Shout-out to any rodent experts listening, though.

The pacarana was discovered by scientists in 1873 when a Polish nobleman traveling in Peru shot one and sent its skin and skeleton home, where it was studied by the director of the Berlin Zoo. But after that one specimen was killed, the pacarana seemed to vanish. Then in 1904 someone sent two pacaranas to a museum in Brazil. The museum’s director gave them to the local zoo where they could be taken care of, although the female died after giving birth shortly afterwards.

It turns out that the pacarana isn’t all that rare, but it’s shy and hard to spot in its habitat, forested mountains in South America. But because it’s seldom seen, not very many zoos have them, but zookeepers all report that pacaranas are docile and friendly. I can confirm that they are very, very cute although I haven’t seen one in person.

The pacarana is named after another rodent called the paca, which looks similar but has a shorter tail and is smaller than the pacarana, although still a pretty big rodent. The paca grows up to about two and a half feet long, or 77 cm, not counting its 9-inch tail, or 23 cm, and is dark brown with rows of white spots on each side. It looks kind of like a chevrotain, which as you may remember from episode 116 is also called the mouse deer even though it’s not a mouse or a deer. The paca lives in a burrow that can be ten feet long, or 3 meters, usually with two entrances that it covers with leaves to hide it. It likes fruit, leaves, flowers, fungi, and other plant material, but it will also eat insects.

The paca likes to swim and can stay underwater even longer than the capybara, as much as 15 minutes. It usually mates in the water too. It’s mostly nocturnal, although some populations may be crepuscular, and it lives in much of Central and South America, although it’s also present in southern Mexico.

After her babies are born, the mother paca tucks her babies in a hole she digs that’s too small for predators to enter. But the hole is also too small for her to enter. To let the babies know it’s safe to come out, she calls to them in a low trill. The paca, in fact, makes a lot of sounds, and its voice is way louder than you’d think. It has resonating chambers in its cheeks to make its voice even louder.

Here are some sounds that a paca makes:

[paca calls]

Ages ago, Llewelly sent me a link to an article about some interesting rodents of South America. I’ve included a link to it in the show notes in case you want to learn more about South American rodents that aren’t quite as big as the ones we’ve covered today, but which are just as interesting.

You can find Strange Animals Podcast online at strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net. That’s blueberry without any E’s. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, email us at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com. We also have a Patreon if you’d like to support us that way.

Thanks for listening! Oh, and this is what a baby capybara sounds like.