Weekly Dose of Cute: Capybara

Last week, we saw the bravest rodent in the world. But these ones are the largest, and they are adorable!
Photo by NIGEL TREBLIN/AFP/Getty Images
Meet the Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris). When I say big, I mean huge. Capybaras can get over 4 ft long and weigh in at 140 lbs! And they live in large, social groups led by a dominant male, similar to many ranging grazing mammals. They're semi-aquatic herbivorous mammals found throughout South America wherever there is water and forest. They can stay underwater for up to 5 minutes and are fantastic swimmers. They've even been known to sleep underwater, keeping their noses just above the water!

Despite being considered a "favorite food" of the big cats and reptiles that live in South America and being hunted by humans for their meat and fur, Capybara populations are stable. In some areas they are even farmed to protect wild populations. Random tid bit: to the Catholic church, they are designated as "fish" so they can be eaten during lent. Who knew? Even still, they are doing well, and their survival is due to their most rodent-like trait: they breed like rabbits! And they produce up to eight of these adorable pups in ever litter.

More like this

Although not as aquatically-adapted as their distant ancestors, Indian elephants are certainly capable swimmers. A number of my fellow ScienceBloggers have covered the "Aquatic Elephant Hypothesis" lately (see here, here, and here), and even though I'm a little late to the party I thought that…
A capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) at the Cape May Zoo. Josephoartigasia dwarfs this animal, the largest of the living rodents. One of the most interesting evolutionary patterns is an increase in the disparity of sizes in a group, small representatives persisting and changing even as some…
Sniffing brings molecules in the air around us into our nose, where they are detected and manifested in our brains as smells. But try the same trick underwater and you would rapidly choke or drown. Nonetheless, smell is a tremendously important sense for most mammals and at least two species…
An article published tonight in the journal PLoS ONE is forcing scientists to rethink everything they thought they knew about whale evolution. OK. That's not actually true. But I've got a bet going that "someone" is going to use the phrase "rethink everything" in their story about this find, so…