We visited London Zoo for a capybara experience. That means we got to sit with them and stroke them and just look at these big rodents inches away from us.
Facts
Capybaras are rodents, the world’s largest rodent, and a big adult can weigh up to 65kg, which is the weight of a small adult human.
They are known as the most chilled-out animals on the planet, closely related to guinea pigs. They have four front toes and three back toes, just like guinea pigs, and they have a split upper lip like guinea pigs.
Just like guinea pigs, they excrete pale-coloured caecum pellets along with olive-coloured faecal pellets.
Caecum pellets are made in the caecum, which is a huge pouch between the small and large intestines. The pouch takes up three quarters of the whole intestine in a capybara and it is where microbes break down tough plant matter to be re-ingested because it is full of protein.
Capybaras stick close to water because that is their escape route if attacked by jaguars. On the downside, that makes them vulnerable to attack by caimans and anacondas. To combat attacks they live in groups of between ten to twenty animals and gather around to present a tougher target and keep the young in the middle of the group.
In the wild capybaras raise the hairs on their bodies so that small birds can groom them and remove insects. The capybaras we saw reacted the same way when we scratched their backs, with their hairs standing straight up while they chilled out with their eyes almost closed.
Their hair is really strong and tough, and down between the hairs we could see their ribbed, bobbled hide that, if anything, looks like elephant hide.
Life is more complicated than we used to think as children. Without the billions of microbes in their gut, capybaras wouldn’t be able to extract nutrients out of plant matter, and without birds to peck insects from their hide they would be attacked slowly by burrowing insects.
And that makes me think about where one animal starts and ends and exactly what it is. Of course, we see the big animal – but below the surface it is part of an ecosystem.
What do birds think when they land on a capybara and it opens channels down its hairs so the birds can eat? Are they friends? Or do they think capybaras are just giant dinner plates providing a dish of insects on command?
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