Have these large rodents taken over — or reclaimed what’s theirs?

Pelican Press · September 8, 2024

This is the hidden content, please

Have these large rodents taken over — or reclaimed what’s theirs?

Has social revolution spread to Argentina? While the country has historically witnessed economic strife, onlookers were graced with a new sort of rebellion in 2021, when hordes of capybara (large rodents also known as

This is the hidden content, please

) created a stampede and

This is the hidden content, please

gated communities in an affluent suburb

This is the hidden content, please

north of Buenos Aires. Known in Argentina as carpinchos, capybaras are gentle and herbivorous, but they are hard to miss. They are the

This is the hidden content, please

, measuring more than three feet long and weighing more than 170 pounds.

Though previously preyed upon by jaguars,

This is the hidden content, please

have almost disappeared in Argentina, and now the rodents,

This is the hidden content, please

, as many rodents do, have increased in population. Local scientists say that in one year, their numbers shot up by 16%, according to

This is the hidden content, please

. More and more have been trampling through gardens and golf courses.

Recently, capybaras

This is the hidden content, please

in Buenos Aires province due to climate change. Indeed, the capital has become more tropical, and increased temperatures and precipitation have created more suitable habitat for the creatures.

This is the hidden content, please

more rainfall and flooding may have caused some brackish lagoons to become less salty, a trend which favors capybaras, since the animals are semi-aquatic freshwater mammals. They seemingly prefer water so much, “hydro” is in their ****** binomial twice: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris.

The rich label the rodents “pests,” but are these “masters of the grasses” invaders or merely “reappropriating” what is theirs? Gated communities and golf courses are located on vulnerable wetlands along the Paraná River, home to capybara habitat. However, this hasn’t stopped rapacious real estate interests from pursuing indiscriminate development which poses a threat to wetlands. Leftist politicians, meanwhile, argue capybaras have become a “symbol of socio-environmental resistance” and even call for “capybara protest caravans.” Young environmentalists, meanwhile, have

This is the hidden content, please

(“Life of Carpinchos”) to draw attention to ongoing environmental campaigns.

Activists are particularly concerned about wetland ecosystems, which are vulnerable to climate change. Ominously, the Paraná delta — the second largest river in South America after the

This is the hidden content, please

—

This is the hidden content, please

several years ago amid terrible drought. The flames worsened

This is the hidden content, please

, which in turn exposed flammable carbon-rich soil. Paradoxically, even though climate change has benefited capybaras in certain respects, in other ways the animals have been placed at greater risk.

This is the hidden content, please

, driving them towards urban areas,

This is the hidden content, please

drive the animals to flee towards areas with already scarce water resources.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Capybaras

Though rodents have evolved in South America for millions of years, some may wonder how the animals will cope with new environmental challenges. Such vexing questions would have intrigued naturalist

This is the hidden content, please

, who made his way through South America from 1832 to 1835. During his travels, Darwin took in local wildlife, including rodents, and his observations later informed the theory of evolution. Traveling along the Paraná,

This is the hidden content, please

“afford a retreat for capybaras and jaguars. The ***** of the latter animal quite destroyed all pleasure in scrambling through the woods.”

When he wasn’t eating

This is the hidden content, please

— probably the twenty pound agouti, which

This is the hidden content, please

“the very best meat I ever tasted” — or collecting small tuco-tuco rodents as pets, the naturalist made important rodent fossil discoveries in Argentina. For instance, he uncovered specimens which were different, but related to, the living

This is the hidden content, please

, a sort of rabbit-like creature. Other specimens belonged to an extinct species of tuco-tuco which grew as large as current-day capybaras. Though it’s unclear whether Darwin’s “cavia” fossils provided a critical “a-ha” moment, some believe the discoveries contributed to evolutionary theory, since they

This is the hidden content, please

living in the same area.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter

This is the hidden content, please

.

Despite their long and enduring evolutionary journey, rodents in Argentina, including capybara, face ecological stress in wetlands, while their smaller cousins

This is the hidden content, please

. Take, for example, the Chalchalero Vizcacha rat, whose range has been reduced to less than five square miles. Then there’s the tuco-tuco, which Darwin described on his travels as “A curious, small animal…tucotucos appear…to be gregarious…This animal is universally known by a very peculiar noise…A person the first time he hears it is much surprised.” While some tuco-tucos

This is the hidden content, please

for thousands of years while enduring harsh climatic conditions, rodent habitat has now been cleared for agricultural and industrial use.

Retracing Darwin’s route, I’ve come to Buenos Aires in conjunction with a book project examining the naturalist’s legacy in relation to climate change. At the Bernardino Rivadavia Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, I caught up with paleontologist

This is the hidden content, please

. Though capybaras were certainly affected by recent fires

This is the hidden content, please

, the scientist explains the animals are still abundant in certain areas.

Indeed, capybaras are hardly endangered, and the creatures, which form part of the larger caviomorph group, are hardy survivors. Rafting from ******* to South America 40 million years ago across an Atlantic that was then more narrow — a voyage which took just one to two weeks — caviomorphs subsequently underwent an “incredible evolutionary radiation.”

Because South America was then an island and had split from North America,

This is the hidden content, please

from other mammals, which allowed rodents of all sizes to evolve with little pressure.

This is the hidden content, please

caviomorphs, which arrived during the Mid-Eocene Climatic Optimum, a

This is the hidden content, please

, were tiny, but Martinelli remarks there’s evidence of other extinct giant rodents in the fossil record. In neighboring Uruguay 2 million years ago, one rodent grew to one ton in weight.

However, once North America rejoined South America, other animals such as saber-toothed cats crossed the land bridge, which may have brought about the demise of giant rodents. It’s also possible that changing climate, which switched from lush to arid-like conditions, may have made giant rodent habitat less hospitable for the creatures. But the current day capybara survived.

Not all giants vanished, however:

This is the hidden content, please

in Martinelli’s office, I spotted a model of Toxodon, a

This is the hidden content, please

long

This is the hidden content, please

which weighed one ton and looked like an “

This is the hidden content, please

” combining hippo, rhino and rodent-like features. In 1832, Darwin uncovered molar teeth belonging to Toxodon, and the following year he discovered a

This is the hidden content, please

. Though Toxodon went extinct more than 11,000 years ago, the animal overlapped with humans in South America. Toxodon, Darwin wrote, was “perhaps one of the strangest animals ever discovered…the structure of its teeth…proves indisputably that it was intimately related to the Gnawers [rodents].”

Though Darwin wondered about the relationship between capybaras and Toxodon, we now know the latter wasn’t technically a rodent but rather belonged to a larger extinct group of animals called

This is the hidden content, please

. During the Pleistocene, Toxodon may have

This is the hidden content, please

common hoofed mammal in South America, and Darwin was “deeply astonished” at the disappearance of such “great monsters.” Though he did not believe changes in temperature provided the ****** *****, researchers now believe

This is the hidden content, please

played a role, or perhaps

This is the hidden content, please

contributed to Toxodon’s demise.

Montevideo, where I also plan to speak with scientists, is a short ferry ride from Buenos Aires. When he wasn’t examining extinct rodent-like skulls in Uruguay, Darwin remarked on “ludicrous” looking capybara making “peculiar” grunts. The animals, he remarked, “were very tame,” which he attributed to “the jaguar having been banished for some years.”

This is the hidden content, please

belonging to Uruguay’s National Museum of Natural History, I met with paleontologists

This is the hidden content, please

. Shortly before my arrival, the museum

This is the hidden content, please

dealing with Darwin’s legacy in Uruguay. The naturalist’s discovery of Toxodon fossils in Uruguay, Rinderknecht remarked, was an important step which helped Darwin come up with evolutionary theory. Jones added that when the museum launched its exhibit, they had been careful to

This is the hidden content, please

of Darwin’s Toxodon skull and jaw.

The conversation turns to the plight of capybaras once more.

This is the hidden content, please

to hunt the creatures in Uruguay, some still disobey the law. Despite this, Rinderknecht says it’s remarkable how these “clumsy” yet “incredible” animals have managed to endure. When jaguar predators disappeared, capybaras were left alone to reproduce. Yet when asked about the environmental catastrophe on the Paraná River which has affected the animals, the scientist weighs his words carefully.

“Capybaras aren’t threatened,” he remarks, adding with emphasis, “for now.”

Though giant rodents, not to mention huge “rodent-like” mammals, have long since disappeared from South America after succumbing to climatic changes, and perhaps even human encroachment, capybaras and other smaller rodents are still with us. Remarkable survivors, they have similarly endured climatic changes throughout their evolutionary history, yet some may wonder whether they have now finally met their match.

This is the hidden content, please

#large #rodents #reclaimed #whats

This is the hidden content, please

Sign In

Home

Activity

Store

Forums

All Servers

Have these large rodents taken over — or reclaimed what’s theirs?

Recommended Posts

Pelican Press 0

Trader Feedback

Have these large rodents taken over — or reclaimed what’s theirs?

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Most Contributions

Vote for the server

Recently Browsing 0 members

Important Information