Capybara (123 photos): what the animal looks like, what it eats, habitat, enemies, conservation status

Capybaras are amazing animals valued for their sociable and gentle disposition. These large, semi-aquatic rodents are native to South America, where they are frequently spotted relaxing near water sources. Their unusual appearance—short legs, a strong body, and a kind face—makes them popular among animal lovers.

This article will discuss the capybara’s natural habitat, which includes rivers, lakes, and wetlands, as well as its diet, which is mainly composed of grasses and aquatic plants. We’ll also talk about the threats that predators and environmental changes pose to them, which will help to clarify their conservation status and the measures taken to safeguard these unusual animals.

Come along as we explore the fascinating world of capybaras through 123 stunning images that highlight both their natural beauty and their vital role in their respective ecosystems. This exploration of capybara life is sure to be educational, regardless of whether you’re a pet enthusiast or just interested in wildlife.

Who is a capybara: what kind of animal is it

The scientific classification places the capybara, one of the two species that are currently in existence, in the order of rodents, a class of mammals.

Agouti, chinchilla, and nutria are the capybara’s more distant relatives, while guinea pigs and moko (mountain pigs) are their close relatives.

Previously, capybaras had their own family group and occupied a distinct niche in the biological classifier.

Currently, they comprise two extant species and are members of the lead family:

• Capybara – common capybara, large capybara.
• Small capybara.

A fossil species discovered in American Grenada at the end of the previous century, which went extinct millions of years ago, confirms the capybara’s ancient origins.

The size of the capybara appears quite large in comparison to the small rodents that we are familiar with.

Adult individuals can grow to a length of nearly 1.5 meters and a height of up to 60 cm at the withers.

With a body weight of more than 65 kg, females are marginally larger than males. A female captured in Brazil had record sizes. She weighed ninety-one kg.

A male Uruguayan set a record for weight when he weighed 73 kg.

Researchers have noted a peculiarity about capybara size: the animals get smaller the further south in population.

What does a capybara look like

The creatures have the appearance of a gigantic guinea pig and are not especially graceful.

The head is large and massive, with a blunt muzzle that is wide, and the body is heavy and bulky. The body has a short, thick neck and is shaped like a barrel. There is no undercoat; the body is covered in coarse hair that can grow up to 12 cm in length.

The hue ranges from reddish-brown to yellow; younger people have paler hues.

The capybara has small, round ears and small, high-set, backward-facing eyes. The animal has a somewhat comical appearance due to its wide apart nostrils and thick upper lip.

The legs are short, the tail is simple, and the front pair of fingers has four fingers while the back pair has only three.

The rodent’s swimming membranes, which enable it to move in the water, are a result of its semi-aquatic lifestyle. The fingers also have short, powerful claws at the end.

Males who are sexually mature have a patch of skin on the upper part of their muzzle that is covered in many large sebaceous glands.

The massive skull has twenty teeth and well-developed zygomatic arches. The incisors are broad and have a longitudinal groove on the outside. They are sharp for the duration of a person’s life.

Since plants are the capybara’s primary food source, their cheek teeth develop throughout their lives and are primarily responsible for crushing food.

The capybara’s skeleton lacks the clavicle bone and has a partially fused fibula and tibia.

Capybara habitat

Capybaras like to live in forests with tall trees and a wide variety of leaves. A body of water must be present in the area, such as a river, low-lying lake, or swamp. These animals are particularly drawn to flooded savannah areas during the rainy season.

Capybaras can usually be photographed standing in the water, either as a solitary animal or in a group.

One family of capybaras usually occupies an area of ​​about 10 hectares. When the dry period begins, families migrate to bodies of water that have not dried up. During this period, competition for food and water is especially intense.

Because capybaras are peaceful animals, they cannot fight each other for food; instead, they form large herds of up to 200 animals and travel together in search of a more nutrient-dense diet. Such a herd is led by a few adult males.

Families of capybaras frequently stray into agricultural areas in search of food, shelter, and water sources. They can even live in peace and harmony in a pen with domestic pigs and bulls or cows.

Introduced as pets to the southern states of North America, capybaras managed to elude their keepers, went feral, and established populations across the continent.

Geographical range

The following nations in Central and South America’s tropical and temperate regions are home to capybaras:

• Argentina,
• Bolivia,
• Brazil,
• Venezuela,
• Guyana,
• Colombia,
• Paraguay,
• Peru,
• Uruguay,
• French Guiana.

As a matter of fact, they inhabit the pools of the subsequent rivers:

• Orinoco,
• Amazon,
• La Plata.

Where there is no free access to water and low nighttime temperatures, capybaras do not reside. The capybara distribution boundary in the mountains is situated at a height of 1300 meters.

With the exception of Chile, all of South America is home to capybaras.

The largest rodents in the world, capybaras are distinguished by their webbed feet, short, stocky bodies, and gregarious, social personalities. They are indigenous to grasslands and forests in South America, where their main diet consists of aquatic plants and grasses. Predators like jaguars and anacondas pose a threat to these gentle animals, but human activity also has an effect on their numbers. Capybaras are protected in some areas to preserve their conservation status, even though they are not endangered.

Behavior and lifestyle

Water pigs are semiaquatic animals that seldom venture more than 500 meters from bodies of water.

Capybaras disperse throughout their habitat during the rainy season when puddles and dried-up ponds fill up. In the dry season, they congregate on the banks of large rivers and reservoirs and travel great distances in large herds in search of food and water.

Being highly gregarious animals, capybaras typically live in family groups of ten to twenty members.

A dominant male, multiple adult females with distinct hierarchical ladders based on age and personality traits, cubs, and multiple adult males in subordinate roles who protect the herd surround the family group.

When subordinate males show willfulness, the dominant male expels them from the group, forcing them to lead a solitary lifestyle. Having met a lone capybara, one can say with almost complete certainty that it is a male.

Ten hectares is the size of a capybara family’s territory, but this is highly variable. Using secretions from the anal and nasal glands to mark such a large area, the group typically reclaims about 10% of the marked territory for permanent habitation.

Water pigs like to be busy during the day, but capybaras will quickly move their activities indoors at night if the family starts to draw the attention of humans or other predators.

These animals use a variety of sounds, such as whistling, clicking, barking, and rumbling, to communicate within their group.

The high position of the eyes, ears, and nostrils on the head allows the capybara to swim almost completely underwater, with only a portion of its head above the water. This makes it an excellent swimmer and diver.

Diet

Capybaras primarily consume the vegetation found near bodies of water. The animals consume the juicy portions of tubers, bulbs, and stems and leaves.

Capybaras dive for their favorite treat, which grows on the pond’s bottom. They are capable of holding their breath for five minutes.

The water pigs will disregard the remaining plants in the pond until their preferred food source is entirely gone if there is a particular kind of vegetation that they enjoy.

The capybara’s digestive system is unique in its design. The animals’ intestines lack sufficient probiotics to break down fiber and aid in the digestion of even highly viscous foods.

Capybaras employ two strategies to enhance the caliber of their digestion:

1. To increase the amount of intestinal bacteria, animals eat their own excrement. Scientists call this method of replenishing intestinal flora "autocoprophagy".
2. Repeated chewing of food. The method is borrowed from ruminants, water pigs regurgitate already swallowed food and chew it again for better extraction of protein and vitamins from the greenery.

Melons, corn, and sugar cane are among the crops that capybaras prey on when there is a lack of food, such as during a dry spell.

Natural enemies and threats

Despite their enormous size, capybaras are at the bottom of the food chain because they do not consume any food that comes from animals.

In actuality, everyone who can, including people, hunts them. Cairmans and ravenous anacondas are their principal foes. Bloodthirsty leopards ambush water pigs on land.

Feral dogs and vultures frequently steal their cubs.

Despite their apparent clumsiness, water pigs can move swiftly and sharply toward the closest body of water when in danger. They have the ability to escape from a caiman or anaconda and feel like fish in the water element.

Although capybaras can live up to ten years in the wild, very few of them actually do because there are too many predators in the area looking to prey on their delicious meat.

Animals in a zoo or farm setting can easily live to be twelve years old.

Methods of communication

Capybaras are highly social animals that enjoy engaging in conversation. They communicate by making a variety of high-pitched and low-pitched noises.

Often, the following sounds can be heard when observing a large family:

• bark,
• clucking,
• whistle,
• scream,
• whining,
• squealing,
• clicking and grinding of teeth.

The guard pigs give a sharp cry that alerts the rest of the herd to the presence of a person or predator, or just the sound of an unexpected noise.

The most common times to hear someone grinding their teeth are during arguments between two aggressively minded men, when settling differences with women, and during meals.

Pigs kept in captivity frequently exhibit whining and grunting when they are pleading for food.

Capybaras typically make clicking noises when they are traveling long distances in unison; this helps the dominant males and females keep the herd in order.

Teeth grinding occurs during feeding and during fights between two aggressively motivated males (from different groups).

Reproduction and offspring

In order to draw attention from females during the mating season, males mark vegetation in their habitat with a secretion from the olfactory gland on their heads.

The female leaves behind a distinct smell, indicating that she is ready to become pregnant. Men start to notice her as she starts to whistle with her nose. The dominant male pays her attention and starts to push other guys away. However, because men do not fight viciously and aggressively to possess women, the women select their partners on their own.

Mating usually takes place in a nearby reservoir at the start of the rainy season.

Female pregnancy lasts approximately 150 days, and births take place outside, in the grass, close to the herd rather than in shelters. a group of two to eight cubs, each weighing roughly 1.5 kg, that are coated in fur and have open eyes and sharp teeth. The piglets get up on their feet as soon as the sow gives them a quick lick.

The babies can follow their mother and eat grass as soon as they are born, and all of the group’s female members assist the mother in caring for her new child. The mother feeds the young capybaras the majority of their milk, but any other nursing female can do the same. You can breastfeed for a maximum of three to four months.

The female can give birth to up to three litters annually in a year with a good food supply; in a dry year, the number of litters drops to one.

At the age of 1.5 years, water pigs reach sexual maturity after gaining roughly 30 kg of weight.

Younger and older capybaras make up a distinct group within the herd that is looked after by all of the adults.

Can they be kept as a pet

Capybaras are calm and amiable animals by nature; they acclimate to humans quickly, enjoy affection, and initiate contact voluntarily. They are clean and get along well with other domestic animals.

Water pigs are frequently kept as pets in South America, where they are found in large numbers in the wild. For this reason, a fence is constructed with a pond inside it, where capybaras are housed like regular farm animals.

Furthermore, capybaras approach human habitation on their own initiative and in an autonomous manner. They establish themselves with whole families in parks and suburban areas, rapidly becoming skilled at pleading for food.

They are found in zoos in Europe and Asia, but they are still considered exotic pets for domestication.

Necessary conditions

A capybara can only be kept as a pet if certain requirements are fulfilled.

• The docile nature and unusual appearance, lack of aggression and desire to interact with people have led to the fact that many people want to keep capybaras as pets. But their size, weight and good appetite exclude the possibility of keeping cute rodents in a city apartment. To keep capybaras, you will have to, at a minimum, get your own house.
• For high-quality maintenance, a small pond of natural or artificial origin is required on the territory of the equipped enclosure.

Possible difficulties

Although water pigs require little care, you should be aware of the following things for comfortable upkeep:

• Capybaras can live alone, but after a while they begin to noticeably get bored, so it is advisable to have several individuals at once.
• For the life of animals in the middle zone with cold and long winters, the enclosure will have to be equipped with a heated room in which a heated pool is installed.
• Capybaras are fed vegetables and fruits, combining them with grain and hay in the form of a mixture. The volume is selected experimentally, everything not eaten during the day must be removed so as not to harm the health of the animals.

Population in the world and conservation status

In their permanent habitats, capybaras do not have a conservation status and are not considered to be endangered species.

The early European settlers in South America launched a full-scale campaign of extermination against capybaras, believing the animals were causing harm to crops. When it was found that the animals only ate aquatic vegetation, the savage killing was scaled back.

Water pigs are currently raised on farms designated for that purpose. There, animals raised for meat, fat, and leather are housed in conditions akin to those of a semi-wild habitat. The appearance and flavor of capybara meat are similar to that of pork, and the fat is utilized in medicine.

Characteristic	Description
Appearance	Capybaras are large, barrel-shaped rodents with short, sturdy legs, small ears, and webbed feet. They have brownish fur and can weigh up to 150 pounds.
Diet	They primarily eat grasses and aquatic plants, but they can also consume fruits, vegetables, and bark.
Habitat	Capybaras are commonly found in South America, living near rivers, lakes, and wetlands where they can access water easily.
Enemies	Predators include jaguars, caimans, and anacondas. Young capybaras are also preyed upon by birds of prey.
Conservation Status	Capybaras are currently classified as "Least Concern" due to their widespread population, though they face habitat loss in some areas.

Capybaras are unusual among rodents because of their social behavior and gentle disposition, which make them fascinating animals. They can survive in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats due to their unusual appearance, which includes large bodies and webbed feet.

Their mostly plant-based diet contributes to their calm disposition. Due to their ability to sustain vegetation and provide food for predators, capybaras are vital to their ecosystems.

Capybaras are under threat from hunting and habitat loss, but conservation efforts are helping to keep them safe. We can help ensure these animals’ survival in the wild by learning about and respecting them.

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