#caviomorpha

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

Idk if it has already been requested, but you could do the Paca! It's like if a rat was long and strange looking.

It hasn't been requested yet, I'll do the whole family!

Have you seen a paca (Family: Cuniculidae)?

I have now

Yes, in photos/videos

Yes, irl

I'm not sure

Voting ended onApr 30

Both of the individuals pictured in this post are spotted pacas.

[alphynix]

Incamys bolivianus was a caviomorph rodent representing an early member of the chinchillid family, with its closest modern relatives being chinchillas and viscachas.

Living in what is now Bolivia and Argentina during the late Oligocene about 27 million years ago, it inhabited an arid open grassland at a time when the area's climate had drastically cooled due to the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

It's estimated to have been similar in size to a large modern chinchilla – weighing around 700g (~1lb 8oz) and measuring about 25-30cm long not including the tail (~10-12").

An endocast of the shape of its brain from a near-complete fossil skull shows that it had a well-developed sense of hearing, particularly in vocalization processing, suggesting it may have been a social animal living in groups communicating with complex calls similar to modern chinchillids. It was probably a ground-dweller less agile than its modern relatives, but still capable of fast movements.

———

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References:

Bertrand, Ornella C., et al. "The virtual brain endocast of Incamys bolivianus: insight from the neurosensory system into the adaptive radiation of South American rodents." Papers in Palaeontology 10.3 (2024): e1562. https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1562

Rasia, Luciano L., Adriana M. Candela, and Carola Cañón. "Comprehensive total evidence phylogeny of chinchillids (Rodentia, Caviomorpha): Cheek teeth anatomy and evolution." Journal of Anatomy 239.2 (2021): 405-423. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13430

Wikipedia contributors. “Agua de la Piedra Formation” Wikipedia, 06 Jan. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agua_de_la_Piedra_Formation

Wikipedia contributors. “Incamys” Wikipedia, 19 Jan. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incamys

[animalids]

Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris)

Photo by Sergio Ali

[eiders]

an agouti (featuring a yellow-billed toucan call)

[thepipsqueakery]

View this post on Instagram

So last night at 1am, Steve decided to jump in and take a bath. Well baths make him hyper and brave, you see. So he decided to try breaking our play space barrier. He succeeded and then got in the guinea pig cage. Once he found out the little cavies would groom him he would do anything to get back in there again. It took me almost two hours to get him put away in his room! Anyway, capybaras are trouble, and I'm very excited that we may be able to break ground on the facility this month if all goes well! #guineapig #capybara #caviomorpha https://www.instagram.com/p/B9hySd5pbIT/?igshid=g06s1cvwx87f

[dendroica]

A young nutria rat at the Mönchbruch nature reserve in Kelsterbach, western Germany

Photograph: Dorothee Barth/DP/AFP/Getty

(via The week in wildlife – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian)

[typhlonectes]

When Rodents Rafted Across the Ocean 

The best evidence we have suggests that, while Caviomorpha originated in South America, they came from ancestors in Africa, over 40 million years ago. So how did they get there? 

via: PBS Eons

[animalids]

North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum)

Photo by Gerry