The capybara or greater capybara is a giant cavy rodent native to South America. It is the largest living rodent and a member of the genus Hydrochoerus. The only other extant member is the lesser capybara. Its close relatives include guinea pigs and rock cavies, and it is more distantly related to the agouti, the chinchilla, and the nutria. 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 live in groups of 10–20 individuals. The capybara is hunted for its meat and hide and also for grease from its thick fatty skin.
Caviidae, the cavy family, is composed of rodents native to South America and includes the domestic guinea pig, wild cavies, and the largest living rodent, the capybara. They are found across South America in open areas from moist savanna to thorn forests or scrub desert. This family of rodents has fewer members than most other rodent families, with 19 species in 6 genera in 3 subfamilies.
The genus Hydrochoerus contains two living and three extinct species of rodents from South America, the Caribbean island of Grenada, California and Panama. Capybaras are the largest living rodents in the world. The genus name is derived from the Greek ὕδωρ 'water' plus χοίρος 'pig'.
Caviomorpha is the rodent infraorder or parvorder that unites all New World hystricognaths. It is supported by both fossil and molecular evidence. The Caviomorpha was for a time considered to be a separate order outside the Rodentia, but is now accepted as a genuine part of the rodents. Caviomorphs include the extinct Heptaxodontidae, the extinct Josephoartigasia monesi and extant families of chinchilla rats, hutias, guinea pigs and the capybara, chinchillas and viscachas, tuco-tucos, agoutis, pacas, pacaranas, spiny rats, New World porcupines, coypu and octodonts.
Caviinae is a subfamily uniting all living members of the family Caviidae with the exception of the maras, capybaras, and Kerodon. The subfamily traditionally contained the guinea pig or cavy-like forms along with the cursorially adapted (running) Kerodon. Molecular results suggest the Caviinae as so defined would be paraphyletic and Kerodon is more closely related to maras and capybaras than to other caviines. This led Woods and Kilpatrick (2005) to unite Kerodon and capybaras into the subfamily Hydrochoerinae within the Caviidae. These studies also suggest Microcavia and Cavia are more closely related to one another than either is to Galea.
The rock cavy or mocó is a cavy species endemic to eastern Brazil which has also been introduced to the Atlantic island of Fernando de Noronha.
The genus Kerodon contains two species of South American rock cavies, related to capybaras and guinea pigs. They are found in semiarid regions of northeast Brazil known as the Caatinga. This area has a rocky terrain with large granite boulders that contain rifts and hollows where Kerodon species primarily live.
Cavia is a genus in the subfamily Caviinae that contains the rodents commonly known as guinea pigs or cavies. The best-known species in this genus is the domestic guinea pig, Cavia porcellus, a meat animal in South America and a common household pet outside of that continent.
Cramauchenia is an extinct genus of litoptern South American ungulate. Cramauchenia was named by Florentino Ameghino. The name has no literal translation. Instead, it is an anagram of the name of a related genus Macrauchenia. This genus was initially discovered in the Sarmiento Formation in the Chubut Province, in Argentina, and later it was found in the Chichinales Formation in the Río Negro Province and the Cerro Bandera Formation in Neuquén, also in Argentina, in sediments assigned to the SALMA Colhuehuapian, as well as the Agua de la Piedra Formation in Mendoza, in sediments dated to the Deseadan. In 1981 Soria made C. insolita a junior synonym of C. normalis. A specimen of C. normalis was described in 2010 from Cabeza Blanca in the Sarmiento Formation, in sediments assigned to the Deseadan SALMA.
The Eocardiidae are an extinct family of caviomorph rodents from South America. The family is probably ancestral to the living family Caviidae, which includes cavies, maras, and capybaras and their relatives. McKenna and Bell (1997) divided eocardiids into two subfamilies, Luantinae for two of the oldest genera and Eocardiinae for remaining genera. Kramarz (2006) has recommended the abandonment of these subfamilies, as the genera placed in Luantinae appear to represent basal eocardiids, rather than a specialized side branch. The latter hypothesis had been proposed by Wood and Patterson (1959).
The acrobatic cavy also known as the Acrobatic Moco and Climbing Cavy is a cavy species native to Brazil. It is found from Goiás state to Tocantins state, west of the Espigão Mestre, Serra Geral de Goiás, and is also found in Terra Ronca State Park.
The lesser capybara is a large semiaquatic rodent of the family Caviidae found in eastern Panama, northwestern Colombia, and western Venezuela. The lesser capybara was described as a species in 1912, but was later re-categorized as a subspecies of the capybara. Following studies of anatomy and genetics in the mid-1980s, it was recommended that it again should be recognized as a separate species, and this gained more widespread recognition in 1991, although some continue to consider it a subspecies.
The Macropodidae are an extant family of marsupial with the distinction of the ability to move bipedally on the hind legs, sometimes by jumping, as well as quadrupedally. They are herbivores, but some fossil genera like Ekaltadeta are hypothesised to have been carnivores. The taxonomic affiliations within the family and with other groups of marsupials is still in flux.
Caviodon is an extinct genus of Late Miocene to Late Pliocene rodents, related to the modern capybara. Fossils of Caviodon have been found in Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil.
James Lloyd Patton, is an American evolutionary biologist and mammalogist. He is emeritus professor of integrative biology and curator of mammals at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley and has made extensive contributions to the systematics and biogeography of several vertebrate taxa, especially small mammals.
Echimyidae is the family of neotropical spiny rats and their fossil relatives. This is the most species-rich family of hystricognath rodents. It is probably also the most ecologically diverse, with members ranging from fully arboreal to terrestrial to fossorial to semiaquatic habits. They presently exist mainly in South America; three members of the family also range into Central America, and the hutias are found in the West Indies in the Caribbean. Species of the extinct subfamily Heteropsomyinae formerly lived on Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico in the Antilles.
Hydrochoerus gaylordi is an extinct species of capybara that lived in Grenada during the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene. This species was found in 1991 by Ronald Singer and his colleagues based on a maxilla bearing 3 molars, but it was not named until 2000. It may be invalid and a synonym of the extant greater capybara.
Hydrochoerus hesperotiganites is an extinct species of capybara that lived in San Diego County, California, during the Rancholabrean stage of the Pleistocene. It is currently the only known capybara of the genus Hydrochoerus found in North America. It was closely related to the modern Greater and Lesser Capybara.
Polymorphis is an extinct genus of litopterns belonging to the family Macraucheniidae. It lived during the Middle Eocene of Argentina.
The Sarmiento Formation, in older literature described as the Casamayor Formation, is a geological formation in Chubut Province, Argentina, in central Patagonia, which spans around 30 million years from the mid-Eocene to the early Miocene. It predominantly consists of pyroclastic deposits, which were deposited in a semi-arid environment. It is divided up into a number of members. The diverse fauna of the Sarmiento Formation, including a variety of birds, crocodilians, turtles and snakes, also includes many mammals such as South American native ungulates as well as armadillos, and caviomorph rodents.
