Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Caviidae > Hydrochoerus > Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris

Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris (Capybara)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is a large rodent of the genus Hydrochoerus of which the only other extant member is the lesser capybara (Hydrochoerus isthmius). The capybara is the largest rodent in the world. Close relatives are guinea pigs and rock cavies, and it is more distantly related to the agouti, chinchillas, 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.
View Wikipedia Record: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  121.255 lbs (55.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  3.307 lbs (1.50 kg)
Diet [2]  Frugivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  10 %
Diet - Plants [2]  90 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year 3 months
Male Maturity [1]  1 year 3 months
Gestation [1]  5 months
Litter Size [1]  5
Litters / Year [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  15 years
Weaning [1]  3 months 13 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Atlantic Forest Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay No
Cerrado Brazil No
Mesoamerica Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama No
Tropical Andes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela No
Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru No

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Caiman crocodilus (Common caiman, Spectacled caiman)[6]
Eunectes murinus (Anaconda, Green Anaconda)[5]
Panthera onca (Jaguar)[5]
Speothos venaticus (Bush Dog)[7]

Consumers

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3HABITOS DE DESPLAZAMIENTO Y DIETA DEL CAPIBARA (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) EN LA AMAZONIA COLOMBIANA, Maria C. Arteaga, Jeffrey P. Jorgenson, Mastozoología Neotropical, 14(1):11-17, Mendoza, 2007
♦ 4Feeding Habits of Capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, Linnaeus 1766), in the Ecological Reserve of Taim (ESEC - Taim) - South of Brazil, Lucélia do Valle Borges and Ioni Gonçalves Colares, Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology, Vol.50, n. 3 : pp.409-416 May 2007
♦ 5Animals of the Rainforest
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 73.10 Bush dog, Speothos venaticus, G.L. Zuercher, M. Swarner, L. Silveira and O. Carrillo, Sillero-Zubiri, C., Hoffmann, M. and Macdonald, D.W. (eds). 2004. Canids: Foxes, Wolves, Jackals and Dogs. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. x + 430 pp.
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 9International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0