Here he is. The world’s largest rodent. The capybara. He lives in Barcelona’s Cosmo-Caixa Science Museum, in the Bosc Inundat (Flooded Forest) . This, along with other South American species, is part of a huge simulated Amazon rainforest ecosystem, with animals, birds and fish.
Monday Portrait
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
He looks mildly disgusted with life, Margaret. Or is he half asleep? Happy Monday! xx
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Probaby. He has an easy life, just munching green stuff.xx
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He looks terrifically smug to me!
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Maybe. I think he knows his place in the tropical forest pecking order. And it ain’t terribly high.
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Hard to tell his size but, according to AI: Capybaras typically weigh 60–174 lbs (27–79 kg) and stand about 1.6–2 feet (50–62 cm) tall at the shoulder. They measure approximately 3.2–4.4 feet (1–1.3 m) in length, roughly the size of a large dog. Females are generally slightly larger than males.
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Thanks for this Sheree. Silly me, it hadn’t registered with me that not everyone would know just how (relatively) big the capybara is. I’ve been around natural-world obsessed children too long!
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TBH, I had no idea that they were so big.
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They are quite surprising!
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Reading the comments I actually hadn’t realised they were so large. I seem to remember from years ago reading that they were distant relatives of the guinea pig…..
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They may be – they look a bit like them. But fe-fi-fo-fum, they’re giants in comparison.
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Well, quite…I was really surprised by their size
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I was confused when I first saw the subject of your portrait, as I was sure you’d be sharing something from Spain, not South America! He looks rather dignified in monochrome 😀
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I don’t know whether he’s dignified or slow. He’s not Spanish for sure, but he is my Spanish granddaughter’s favourited cuddly toy!
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😍
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We have a family of capybara in our zoo. They started with a young (small) female, added the male. They grew to large adults and now have babies. They are cute when young and small; not so cute as adults.
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They’re bit ponderous, aren’t they?
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YES!
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