Capybara

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Capybara

Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris In page 57, Darwin says "The largest gnawing animal in the world, the Hydrochærus Capybara (the water-hog), is here also common."
See it also in ), also known as capibara, chigüire in Venezuela, chigüiro, and carpincho in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, and capivara in Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
, is the largest living rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an Order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing Incisors#The_Rodent_incisor in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
in the world.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Capybara'

Start a new discussion about 'Capybara'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Spanish language

Portuguese language

Rodent

Agouti

Agouti refers to a number of species of rodents as well as a number of genes affecting coat coloration in several different animals.*When referring to a rodent, agouti can mean:...
, chinchilla

Chinchilla

Chinchillas are crepuscular rodents, slightly larger than ground squirrels, native to the Andes mountains in South America. Along with their relatives, viscachas, they belong to the family Chinchillidae....
s, coyphillas, and guinea pig

Guinea pig

The guinea pig is a species of rodent belonging to the family Caviidae and the genus Cavia. Despite their common name, these animals are not pigs, nor do they come from Guinea ....
s. Its common name

Common name

A common name is a name in general use within a community . A common name is not necessarily a commonly used name.Many of the conventions and traditions described in this article are based on the English language, and thus may not apply to common names in other languages....
, derived from Kapiÿva in the Guarani language

Guaraní language

Guaran? is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tup?-Guaran? subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by 94% of the population....
, means "master of the grasses" while its scientific name, hydrochaeris, is Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
for "water hog".

Capybaras have heavy, barrel

Barrel

A barrel or cask is a hollow Cylinder container, traditionally made of wood staves and bound with iron hoops. The term "barrel" typically refers to wooden vessels that are small enough to be moved by hand, up to puncheon size ....
-shaped bodies and short heads with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of their body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. Adult capybaras may grow to , and weigh up to . Capybaras have slightly webb

Webb

Webb may refer to:...
ed feet, no tail, and 20 teeth. Their back legs are slightly longer than their front legs and their muzzles are blunt with eyes, nostrils, and ears on top of their head. Females are slightly heavier than males.

Fossil record & other species

Though now extinct, there once existed a larger capybara called Neochoerus pinckneyi
Neochoerus pinckneyi

Neochoerus pinckneyi was a North American species of capybara. While capybaras originated in South America, formation of the Isthmus of Panama three million years ago allowed some of them to migrate north as part of the Great American Interchange....
. Other fossil rodents that were eight times the size of modern capybaras have been informally called "capybaras" but were actually dinomyid

Dinomyidae

The family Dinomyidae was once a very successful group of South American hystricognath rodent, but now contains only a single living species, the Pacarana....
s related to the pacarana

Pacarana

The pacarana is a rare and slow-moving South American rodent found only in tropical forests of the western Amazon River basin and adjacent foothills of the Andes Mountains from northwestern Venezuela and Colombia to western Bolivia....
. There is also a "lesser capybara", Hydrochoerus isthmius.

Development

Capybaras reach sexual maturity within 22 months and breed when conditions are perfect, which can be once per year (such as in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the List of countries by population country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world....
) or throughout the year (such as in Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a country on the northern coast of South America.The country comprises a continental mainland and numerous islands located off the Venezuelan coastline in the Caribbean Sea....
and Colombia

Colombia

Colombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a country in north-western South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the north west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean....
). The male pursues a female and mounts when the female stops in water. Capybara gestation

Gestation

Gestation is the carrying of an embryo or fetus inside a female viviparous animal. Mammals during mammalian pregnancy can have one or more gestations at the same time ....
is 130–150 days and usually produces a litter

Litter (animal)

A litter is the offspring at one birth of animals from the same mother and usually from one set of parents. The word is most often used for the offspring of mammals, but can be used for any animal that gives birth to multiple young....
of four capybara babies, but may produce between two and eight in a single litter. Birth is on land and the female will rejoin the group within a few hours of delivering the newborn capybaras, who will join the group as soon as they are mobile. Within a week the young can eat grass, but will continue to suckle - from any female in the group - until weaned at about 16 weeks. Youngsters will form a group within the main group. The rainy season of April and May mark the peak breeding season

Season

A season is one of the major divisions of the year, generally based on yearly periodic changes in weather.Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the Axial tilt....
. Like other rodents, the front teeth of capybaras grow continually to compensate for the constant wearing-down from eating grasses; their cheek teeth also grow continuously. When fully grown, a capybara will have coarse hair that is sparsely spread over their skin, making the capybara prone to sunburn

SunBurn

SunBurn is a regional event held in Florida. Although SunBurn has its roots in the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada, it is not an official Burning Man event, because the organizers of SunBurn do not condone the direction that the Burning Man Organization has taken over the years....
. To prevent this, they may roll in mud to protect their skin from the sun.

Capybara have an extremely efficient digestive system that sustains the animal while 75% of its diet encompasses only 3-6 species of plants.

Habitat

Capybara are semi-aquatic mammals found wild in much of South America (including Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, French Guyana, Uruguay, Peru, and Paraguay) in densely forest

Forest

File:Stara planina suma.jpgA forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on various criteria....
ed areas near bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds and marshes, such as flooded savannah

Savannah

Savannah or savanna is a type of grassland.It can also mean:...
and along rivers in tropical forest. They roam in home range

Range (biology)

In biology, the range or distribution of a species is the geographical area within which that species can be found. Within that range, dispersion is variation in local density....
s of 25–50 acre

Acre

The acre is a Units of measurement of area in a number of different systems, including the Imperial unit#Measures of area and United States customary units#Units of area systems....
s (10–20 ha). Many escapees from captivity can also be found in similar watery habitats around the world, including (July 2008) the River Arno in Florence, Italy.

Diet

Capybara is an herbivore

Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
(more specifically, a graminivore

Graminivore

In zoology, a graminivore is an herbivorous animal that feeds primarily on grass . The word is derived from Latin graminis, meaning "grass", and vorare, meaning "to eat." Graminivory is a form of grazing....
), grazing mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit

Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
and tree bark. An adult capybara will eat 6 to 8 pounds (2.7 to 3.6 kg) of grasses per day. Capybara's jaw hinge is non-perpendicular and they thus chew food by grinding back and forth rather than side-to-side.

Capybaras are coprophagous, meaning they eat their own faeces as a source of bacterial gut flora

Gut flora

The gut flora are the microorganisms that normally live in the digestive tract of animals. Though widely known as the "intestinal microflora", this is technically a misnomer since the word root "flora" pertains to plants and biota refers to microbial life such as bacteria other than plants....
and in order to help digest

Digest

Digest can refer to any of the following:*Digestion of food** Digestophobia, the fear of eating something that may upset your stomach*Digest access authentication in [], Session Initiation Protocol and other computer network protocols...
the cellulose

Cellulose

File:Cellulose Sessel.svgCellulose is an organic compound with the chemical formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand ? linked D-glucose units....
in the grass that forms their normal diet and extract the maximum protein from their food. Additionally, they may regurgitate food to masticate the food again, similar to cud-chewing by a cow.

Behavior

Capybaras are social

Social

Social refers to a characteristic of living organisms . It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary....
animals, usually found in groups, between 10 and 30 (though larger groups of up to 100 sometimes can be formed), controlled by a dominant male (who will have a prominent scent gland

Scent gland

Scent glands are found in the genitals of most mammals and in various other parts of the body, such as the underarms of humans and the preorbital glands of deer....
on his nose used for smearing his scent on the grasses in his territory.) They communicate through a combination of scent and sound, being very vocal animals with purr

Purr

A purr is a sound made by all species of felidaes and is a part of cat communication. It varies in detail from cat to cat , and from species to species, but can be characterized as a sort of tonal buzzing....
s and alarm barks, whistles and clicks, squeals and grunts.

Capybaras are excellent swimmers and can survive completely underwater for up to five minutes, an ability they will use to evade predators. If necessary, a Capybara can sleep underwater, keeping its nose just at the waterline.

During midday, as temperature

Temperature

In physics, temperature is a physical property of a Physical system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold; something that feels hotter generally has the greater temperature....
s increase, Capybaras wallow in water to keep cool and then graze in late afternoons and early evenings. They sleep little, usually dozing off and on throughout the day and grazing into and through the night.

Predators

The capybara is a water going animal and is the preferred prey of the anaconda, the heaviest snake on Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
, which can reach a length of 7.5 metre

Metre

The metre or meter is a Unit of measurement of length. It is the SI base unit of length in the metric system and in the International System of Units , used around the world for general and scientific purposes....
s.

Conservation

Capybara are not on the IUCN list and so not considered a threatened species

Threatened species

Threatened species are any species which are vulnerable to extinction in the near future.World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories: Vulnerable species, endangered species, and Critically endangered species, depending...
; their population

Population

File:Population density.pngIn biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings....
is stable through most of their South American ranges, though in some areas hunting has reduced their numbers. They have a lifespan of 4-8 years in the wild but average a life less than four years as they are "a favourite food

Food

Food is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be Eating or Drinking by an animal or human for nutrition or pleasure....
of anacondas, jaguar

Jaguar

The jaguar, Panthera onca, is a New World Felidae and one of four "big cats" in the Panthera genus, along with the tiger, lion, and leopard of the Old World....
, puma

Puma

The cougar , also puma, mountain lion, or panther, depending on region, is a mammal of the Felidae family, native to the Americas....
, ocelot

Ocelot

The Ocelot , also known as the Painted Leopard, McKenney's Wildcat, Jaguatirica or Manigordo is a wild Felidae distributed over South America and Central America and Mexico, but has been reported as far north as Texas and in Trinidad, in the Caribbean....
, eagle

Eagle

Eagles are large bird of prey which are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several Genus which are not necessarily closely related to each other....
and caiman".

Capybaras are hunted for their meat and pelts

Pelage

In mammals, pelage is the hair, fur, or wool that covers the animal. In many mammals, the pelage is made up of more than one type of hair. Some of the most prominent types of hair that make up the pelage include guard hairs , bristles , and the underfur, which traps in air to maintain temperature....
in some areas, and otherwise killed by humans who see their grazing as competition for livestock

Livestock

Livestock is the term used to refer to a domesticated animal intentionally reared in an agricultural setting to produce things such as food or fibre, or for its labour....
. The skins are particularly prized for making fine gloves because of its unusual characteristic of stretching in just one direction. In some areas they are farmed, which has the effect of ensuring that the wetland

Wetland

File:Mangrove trees in Everglades.JPGA wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water....
habitats are protected. Their survival is aided by their ability to breed rapidly.

Capybaras can be found in many areas in zoo

Zoo

A Zoology garden, abbreviated to zoo, is an institution in which living animals are exhibited in captivity. In addition to their status as tourist attractions and recreational facilities, modern zoos may engage in captive breeding programs, conservation study, and educational outreach....
s and park

Park

A park is a Environmental protection, in its natural or semi-natural state or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment....
s, sometimes allowed to roam freely and may live for 12 years in captivity

Captivity

Captivity may refer to:*Imprisonment or hostage, the state of being confined to a space from which it is difficult or impossible to escape*the same used in a figurative sense, like for example female captivity, as allegorically portrayed in The Gilded Cage, a painting by Evelyn De Morgan...
.

Human interaction

Capybaras are gentle and will usually allow humans to pet and hand-feed them. Capybara skin is tough, and thus in some areas where capybaras are wild, they are hunted for meat and their skin, which is turned into a high-quality leather, while some ranchers hunt them for fear of the competition for grazing. The meat is said to look and taste like pork. The Capybara meat is dried and salted, then shredded and seasoned. Considered a delicacy, it is often served with rice and plantains.

During the Christian celebration of Lent

Lent

Lent, in Christianity, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. Conventionally it is described as being forty days long, though different Christian denominations calculate the forty days differently....
, capybara meat is especially popular as it is claimed that the Catholic church

Catholic

Catholic is an adjective derived from the Greek language adjective , meaning "whole" or "complete". In the context of Christianity ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages....
, in a special dispensation, classified the animal as a fish in the 16th century. (cf. Barnacle goose

Barnacle Goose

The Barnacle Goose belongs to the genus Branta of black goose, which contains species with largely black plumage, distinguishing them from the grey Anser species....
) There are differing accounts of how the dispensation arose. The most cited refers to a group of 16th Century missionaries who made a request which implied that the semi-aquatic capybara might be a "fish" and also hinted that there would be an issue with starvation if the animal wasn't classified as suitable for Lent.

Capybara

Fossil record & other species

Development

Habitat

Diet

Behavior

Predators

Conservation

Human interaction

See also

Related news