Capybara

Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris

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" ... one evening, a man walked in leading on a length of string a fully-grown capybara. ... the capybara wandered about the garden with a fearfully aristocratic expression on his face, occasionally nibbling at a bloom when he thought I was not looking. ... at about midnight my companion and I were woken by a most peculiar noise. It sounded like someone playing a Jew's harp, accompanied by somebody else banging in a vague sort of way on a tin can. I lay there, wondering what on earth it could be, when I suddenly remembered the capybara.

Uttering a loud cry of 'The capybara's escaping!' I leapt out of  bed and rushed downstairs into the garden in my pyjamas, where I was soon joined by my friend.

In the garden everything was quite quiet and we found our rodent sitting on his haunches, looking down his nose in a superior manner. My friend and I had a long argument as to whether or not it was this animal that had been making the noise. He insisted that it could not have been, because, he said, the capybara looked so innocent, ...

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... and I said that it was the capybara for exactly that reason. Since the sound was not repeated, we went back to bed, and no sooner had we settled down, than the awful row started again, only this time it was worse than ever. Looking out of the window I could see the capybara's cage shaking and shuddering in the moonlight. Creeping downstairs and approaching very cautiously, we could see what the animal was doing. He was sitting there in his cage with a rather sneering expression on his face; then he leant forward and put his great curved teeth round a strand of the wire front, pulled hard and released it so suddenly that the whole cage vibrated like a harp. He waited until the noise had died away and then raised his fat behind and thumped with his feet on the tin tray, crashing away like thunder. I presumed he was applauding his own musical efforts. We decided that he was not trying to escape but merely doing this because he liked the sound it produced. ..."

.The New Noah - Hunts and Captures in Guiana by Gerald Durrell (©) 1955

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RANGE: South America south to Argentina

HABITAT: Forest near water

SIZE: Length around 1.25 metres

DIET: Plants, especially aquatic plants including bamboo

NOTES: A rodent - qualifying as the worlds largest, looking like a giant guinea pig. Good swimmer spending much time in water. Active often at dawn/dusk or nocturnal.  Sometimes called "water cavy".

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Based on a caricature drawing by Gerald Durrell in the possession of

Jeremy J.C. Mallinson and published in his Durrelliania

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