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It was rather obvious that the capybaras pictured in #7 of this series were all looking in the same direction, intently.
Probably, their eyes were keenly focused on this post’s hero, who was basking on the wetland’s opposite bank.
S/he is a spectacled caiman – one of six living caiman species. (or three species – caimans’ classification is a contested/confusing field)
Caimans are South & Central America’s crocodilians.
Leave a CommentYou are looking at very large, highly sociable rodents.
There are just two capybara species; pictured is the more widespread, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, the greater capybara.
It is – handsomely – the world’s largest living rodent.
A “typical” adult weighs between 35 & 66 kilograms; females are bigger than males.
The heaviest-recorded wild capybara weighed 91 kilograms!
An adult’s body length usually exceeds 1 metre.
These very adaptable herbivores inhabit every South American nation, bar Chile.
They thrive in both grassland & forest, & quite happily share habitat with humans & their livestock.
Capybaras mate and give birth only in water, so convenient access to a river, lake or wetland is a “must”.
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