My friend Kent is a wordly young man, and today Rodents Of Unusual Size came up, as they so often do in daily conversation. He asked me if I knew about the capybara of South America, the closest thing we have to an R.O.U.S. Seriously, these are big suckers.
Related to the common guinea pig, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris is the largest rodent on the earth and can weigh up to 140 pounds (but the largest one recorded was a whopping 232 pounds (that's just insane (parentheses!))). They like living in dense forest areas with plenty of water around, like lakes, rivers and swamps. Perhaps even fire swamps... who knows?
One good thing is that they don't eat meat, so we humans are safe. One gross thing is that they are "coprophagous," which means they eat their own feces for bacteria to aid in their digestion.
Now here's where it gets surreal. Some people have capybaras as pets. House pets. With leashes. Check it:
Melanie Typaldos is the most enthusiastic capybara pet owner on the internet. And maybe anywhere else. Check the link to her website devoted completely to, and "by" her pet capy, Caplin Rous. He's also got a twitter account with 3,304 followers at the time of this blog post.
So there ya go.
:P
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