Toggle Menu
  1. Home/
  2. Info/

VIDEO: 10 Abnormally Large Animals Found on Earth

Mother nature is amazing and still leaves us baffled at times!

All we can do is sit there and look in awe at its wonders!

This video presents the ten largest sea creatures and animals on earth!

loading...

The most impressive one is for sure the capybara!

According to Wikipedia, the capybara is the largest rodent in the world. Also called chigüire, it is a member of the genus Hydrochoerus, of which the only other extant member is the lesser capybara. Close relatives are guinea pigs and rock cavies, and it is more distantly related to the agouti, the chinchilla, and the coypu.

Native to South America, the capybara inhabits savannas and dense forests and lives near bodies of water. It is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as 100 individuals, but usually lives in groups of 10–20 individuals.

The capybara is not a threatened species and is hunted for its meat and hide and also for a grease from its thick fatty skin which is used in the pharmaceutical trade.

The capybara has a heavy, barrel-shaped body and short head, with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of its body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. Its sweat glands can be found in the surface of the hairy portions of its skin, an unusual trait among rodents. The animal lacks under hair, and guard hair differs little from over hair.

Adult capybaras grow to 106 to 134 cm (3.48 to 4.40 ft) in length, stand 50 to 62 cm (20 to 24 in) tall at the withers, and typically weigh 35 to 66 kg (77 to 146 lb), with an average in the Venezuelan llanos of 48.9 kg (108 lb). The top recorded weights are 91 kg (201 lb) for a wild female from Brazil and 73.5 kg (162 lb) for a wild male from Uruguay.

Capybaras have slightly webbed feet and vestigial tails. Their hind legs are slightly longer than their forelegs; they have three toes on their rear feet and four toes on their front feet. Their muzzles are blunt, with nostrils, and the eyes and ears are near the top of their heads. Females are slightly heavier than males.

loading...

Capybaras are gregarious. While they sometimes live solitarily, they are more commonly found in groups of around 10–20 individuals, with two to four adult males, four to seven adult females, and the remainder juveniles.

Capybara groups can consist of as many as 50 or 100 individuals during the dry season when the animals gather around available water sources. Males establish social bonds, dominance, or general group consensus. They can make dog-like barks when threatened or when females are herding young.

Capybaras have two types of scent glands; a morillo, located on the snout, and anal glands. Both sexes have these glands, but males have much larger morillos and use their anal glands more frequently. The anal glands of males are also lined with detachable hairs. A crystalline form of scent secretion is coated on these hairs and is released when in contact with objects such as plants.

These hairs have a longer-lasting scent mark and are tasted by other capybaras. Capybaras scent-mark by rubbing their morillos on objects, or by walking over scrub and marking it with their anal glands.

Joanna Grey

Loading...