Capybara Madness » What I Am Not

What I Am Not: Lots of things!

Caplin Rous — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:24:30 +0000

Some things I am not

I was thinking that while I have said a few things that I am not in previous posts, I have really only scratched the surface. There are an awful lot of things I’m not and I can’t go through them species by species or even genus by genus or I will never cover them all. Therefore I have decided to make this post to explain in broad strokes all of the things I am not.

Living vs. non-living

Let’s start simple. If all things can be divided into living or non-living (which is harder than you might think), I definitely fall on the living side. I am not a rock or a car or a planet or a liquid or a volcano or a galaxy. All of those things are not alive, even though some of them move. And I’m not sure anyone knows whether viruses and things like prions should fall in the living or non-living category.

Capybaras are Living!

Major types of living things (or Kingdoms)

Back in the day, all life used to be divided into two kingdoms, animals and plants. Things aren’t so simple anymore. Now the number of kingdoms is disputed, there could be five or six or even more.

Here are the six kingdoms as proposed by Cavalier-Smith in 2004.

Bacteria
Protozoa
Chromista
Fungi
Plants
Animals

Mexican blanket flowers, a kind of plant

I could go into why I am not in one of the top five groups but instead let’s just say why I am in the sixth group, the animals.

Animal cells do not have cell walls like plants or fungi do. Our cells are surrounded by membranes that hold their contents in.

Some animals are only one cell and some animals are lots of cells. Being lots of cells, or multicellular, isn’t enough to make a living thing an animals. Lots of plants and fungi are also multicellular. My favorite plants, grasses, have lots of cells.

Animals are heterotrophs, that’s just a fancy word that means that animals have to eat other living things; animals cannot make their food out of non-living stuff like sunlight, air, water, soil, sulfur or whatnot. I eat grass, which is in the Plants group, and that is part of what makes me an animal.

Capybaras are Animals!

Types of Animals (or Animal Phyla)

A phylum (or phyla when it is plural), is a big group of living things that all share some characteristics that are pretty fundamental to their way of life. For example, the sponges are in the phylum Porifera and they all share the characteristic of not have much internal structure or cohesion. You can put a sponge though a sieve so that each cell is separated from ever other and it can come back together and be one sponge. Capybaras certainly can’t do that.

Another phylum that’s really interesting is Radiata. All of the animals in radiata are built on circular plans. A good example of that is starfish. You can draw more than one line through a starfish and as long as it goes through the center, the two halves are identical. You can’t do that to a capybara.

Another way animals can be organized is bilaterally. That means that there is only one line that you can draw down the middle of them and have the two sides be about the same. Most animals are bilaterally symmetrical including humans and capybaras.

Here’s a chart that I stole from wikipedia showing the different groups of animals.

Types of Animals

You can see that there are lots of types but, and this is an amazing fact, almost all animals are arthopods! Like capybaras, arthopods are bilaterally symmetrical but they are different from us in lots of other ways. For example, they have their skeleton on the outside of their bodies! There are three types of arthopods in the image at the top of this post, a caterpillar, a lady bug and some aphids. Those are all insects! In fact, most arthopods are insects and that means that most animals are insects. It’s kind of weird to think about.

Even though insects are so plentiful, I am glad I am not an insect. They don’t get very big, partly because they don’t have any lungs and just breath through holes in their skin. That sounds kind-of creepy.

Mollusks, animals in the phylum Mullusca, are some of my favorites. Like capybaras, they are bilaterally symmetrical but they don’t even have skeletons! Lots of them, like clams and snails, have shells but some mollusks don’t even have that.

Cuttlefish are especially cute mollusks

Cuttlefish, like the one that my owner saw at the Houston Museum of Natural History, have a thing called a cuttlebone that helps keep their body rigid but octopus and squid don’t have anything and they can fit even very large bodies into tiny holes. I might like to be able to do that. And see how this one has a purple rim? That is because it can turn itself into a lamp! Can you imagine how fun it would be if capybaras could do that?

Well, it turns out that capybaras belong in the group Chordata because we have spinal cords. That is a bundle of nerves that from our brains all the way down our backs. Humans are also chordates. So are dogs, horses, cats, goldfish, eels, birds and lots of other commonly known animals.

Capybaras are Chordates!

I think I am going to have to stop now and finish this in another post. I guess there are two many types of things that I am not to explain it all at one time, even when I try to make just very broad distinctions. I hope you are finding this interesting. Leave me a comment to let me know if you want to hear more.

To sum up what we’ve covered so far, capybaras are:

Alive
Animals
Chordates

What I Am Not: A Fish

Caplin Rous — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:56:21 +0000

Me swimming like a fish

Of all the things I have been confused with, a fish must be the craziest. I am bringing this up now because it is almost Easter. This is a very bad time for wild capybaras and it is all because of us being confused with fish. Before we get into why, let me just go over some of our similarities and differences.

Some ways we are different:

Fish have scales, capybaras have fur
Fish breath with gills, capybaras have beautiful noses
Fish breath water, capybaras breath air
Fish have fins, capybaras have legs
Fish are exothermic (cold-blooded), capybaras are endothermic (warm-blooded)
Fish don’t have eyelids, capybaras have eyelids with beautiful lashes
Fish come in all kinds of crazy colors, capybaras, like almost all mammals, are a shade of brown
Fish don’t have ears, capybaras have very cute ears that we wiggle when happy

Some ways we are similar:

Fish and capybaras both swim underwater
Fish and capybaras are both vertebrates (have backbones)
Some fish and all capybaras have teeth

To be honest, there aren’t many similarities and I really skimped on the differences. To me, it is virtually impossible to confuse a capybara with a fish, but it has been done.

In fact, the confusion started in the 16th century when a group of monks convinced the “infallible” pope, that capybaras were fish just so their new converts could eat us during lent. For those of you who don’t know, there used to be a restriction against eating meat during lent, which is the 40 days leading up to Easter. Since the converts weren’t going to follow this restriction anyway, the monks thought it would be better if the pope condoned it rather than having all of their new parishioners breaking the faith.

Venezuelans still eat lots of capybaras during lent and this makes me very, very sad.

What I Am Not: Peccary / Javelina

Caplin Rous — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:58:07 +0000

The wide variety of animals that I can be confused with is a constant source of amazement to me. How could you humans mistake a cute animal like a capybara with some of these–let’s call them visually challenged–animals? I don’t get it. Nevertheless, it does happen and I am here to set the record straight. I am NOT a peccary or javelina or skunk hog or whatever other name you want to call these animals.

Collared peccary in Venezuela

I’m not saying peccaries aren’t cute. They have a certain charm about them. But look at that nose! Now look at the photo of my nose.

My profile including my adorable nose

Do they look anything alike? No.

Here are some other ways we are different:

Peccaries have hooves (they are in the group with even-toed hoofed animals), capybaras have webbed feet.
Peccaries are omnivores, capybaras are herbivores
Peccaries have tusks, capybaras have self-sharpening incisors
Peccaries live from the American Southwest, through Central America and South America, capybaras are restricted to southern Panama and eastern South America.
Peccaries top out at around 90 lbs, that would be a puny capybara
Groups of peccaries sometimes attack and kill humans, capybaras are sweet, docile animals
Peccaries have an unpleasant odor from a scent gland on their back, capybaras have a nose scent gland whose odor is not noticeable by humans
Peccaries can run up to 20 mph, no one bothers to clock capybaras because we are so slow
Peccaries live up to 24 years, capybaras, sadly, live only 12-14 years

Here are some ways we are similar:

Our overall body shape is long and narrow
We overlap through much of our South American ranges
We both have very coarse hair
We are about the same length and height even though capys weigh more
We both have small ears (although capy ears are much cuter)
Jaguars, crocodiles and caiman will eat capybars or peccaries

I hope that clears up any confusion you have had on this topic. Do not feel too badly, lots of people make this mistake. But look again at the nose on that peccary and my nose. Seriously, don’t confuse us again.

What I Am Not: Tapir

Caplin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:24:09 +0000

You would be surprised how many people do not even know what a capybara is. They have never even dreamed of our existence. This is so sad, especially because we are probably the cutest animals on earth. I’m not bragging, just stating the facts.

So I decided to start a new series: Animals I Am Not.

This series will address some of the many, many types of animals I have been misidentified as. Today’s entry is the tapir, possibly the #1 animal I am incorrectly accused of being.

Sarah Cooper provided this photo taken at the Twycross Zoo

I think you can see that we do not look at all alike.

Here are some of the ways we are different:

Capybaras are rodents, Tapirs are ungulates
Tapirs are more closely related to horses than they are to capybaras.
Tapirs are much bigger than capybaras
Tapirs are 7′ long and 3′ at the shoulder. Capybaras are 4′ long and 2′ at the shoulder.
Tapirs weigh 300-700 lbs, Capys weigh 75 – 150 lbs
Tapirs have a proboscis, a long snout, whereas capybaras have a beautifully blunt nose
Tapirs have a very short tail, capybaras have virtually no tail (just a little nub)
There are four species of tapirs and only two species of capybaras
Baby tapirs are striped, baby capys are colored pretty much like adults
Spellcheckers know the word tapir but do not know capybara (I’m tired of that red underline!)
Tapirs are browsers whereas capybaras are grazers

Here are some of the ways we are similar:

We both have long, narrow bodies often described as “pig-like”
Our hind feet have three toes and our forefeet have four toes
Some tapirs live in South America right alongside capybaras
Tapirs and capybaras both like water
Tapirs and capybaras are both herbivores
Jaguars and crocodiles will eat either a tapir or a capybara
Tapirs and capybaras both like mud

I hope you have found this helpful. Don’t be ashamed if you have made this mistake yourself, just consider yourself lucky that you now know about the most wonderous animal in the world, the capybara!