Water Pig Skull Replica measures 8.5×4.75×4.75 inches. Known as Capybara. Water Pig Skull Replica is museum quality polyurethane resin cast. 2-part skull (separate cranium and jaw). Made in USA. Known as Capybara. Our precise skull can be used as a teaching tool, museum skull exhibit, home decor skull, or office decor skull.
The Greater Capybara or Water Pig is a mammal native to South America. It is the largest living rodent in the world. Also called chigüire, chigüiro and carpincho.
The Water Pig are the largest of rodents, weighing from 35 to 66 kg and standing up to 0.6 meters at the shoulder, with a length of about 1.2 meters. Females of this species are slightly larger than males.
Their fur is coarse and thin, and is reddish brown over most of the body, turning yellowish brown on the belly and sometimes black on the face.
The body is barrel-shaped, sturdy, and tailless. The front legs are slightly shorter than the hind legs, and the feet are partially webbed. This, in addition to the location of the eyes, ears, and nostrils on top of the head, make the Water Pig well-suited to semi-aquatic life.
Water Pigs are herbivores, grazing mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. They are very selective feeders and feed on the leaves of one species.
They eat a greater variety of plants during the dry season. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season.
The Water Pigs jaw hinge is not perpendicular, so they chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side.
Capybaras are autocoprophagous, meaning they eat their own feces as a source of bacterial gut flora, to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet, and to extract the maximum protein and vitamins from their food.
Water Hog also regurgitate food to masticate similar to cud-chewing by cattle. The front teeth of capybaras grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses.
Water Pig groups can consist of as many as 50 or 100 individuals during the dry season when the animals gather around available water sources.
Males establish social bonds, dominance, or general group consensus. They can make dog-like barks when threatened or when females are herding young.
Greater Capybara gestation is 130–150 days, and produces a litter of four young on average, but may produce between one and eight in a single litter.
Birth is on land and the female rejoins the group within a few hours of delivering the newborn Capybaras, which join the group as soon as they are mobile.
Water Pigs are not considered a threatened species; their population is stable throughout most of their South American range, though in some areas hunting has reduced their numbers.
Water Pigs are hunted for their meat and pelts in some areas, and otherwise killed by humans who see their grazing as competition for livestock.
In some areas, they are farmed, which has the effect of ensuring the wetland habitats are protected. Their survival is aided by their ability to breed rapidly.
Capybaras have adapted well to urbanization in South America. They can be found in many areas in zoos and parks, and may live for 12 years in captivity, more than double their wild lifespan.
Capybaras are docile and usually allow humans to pet and hand-feed them.
Water Pigs are a least-concern species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild.
