About Capybara

Capybaras are the World's largest living rodents. Although they come from South America, they became extremely popular in Japan. Capybaras can be found in zoos where people come to pet them. There's also a toy character Kapibara-san (カピバラさん) created by Banpresto - you can buy almost anything with it in Japan (but in fact only in Japan because they are for sale only there). Capybaras are very calm and relaxed animals, I recommend viewing beautiful films made by fans on youtube. Some people keep them ocassionally as pets e.g. in USA, but personally I think this must be hard to do because Capybara needs water to live (they're semi-aquatic animals). Nonetheless these people seem to be very happy with their unusual pets. If you're looking for more information on Capybaras, please visit wikipedia or try some of my links below.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Capybara tour: Vienna

On Saturday 13th Aug I visited Tiergarten Schoenbrunn in Vienna with my bf. This zoo belongs to Schoenbrunn Castle. We didn't see all animals, because capybaras were the most important for us. We spent most of the time on making photos of them. It was not easy because there were only 3 capybaras, living on large area with other animals.



Capybara lives in "The South America Park" (part of the zoo) with Tapir, Nandu, Vicuna and Great anteater. It was very funny to hear German speaking people who didn't know what capybara/Wasserschwein is - they called it 'riesen Meersau' which means 'huge sea sow' (just like Meerschweinchen = Guinea pig = 'sea piggy') ;-) I'm still laughing.





The animals have separate 'rooms' in a special hut where visitors can come and observe them.



When we arrived, it was meal time for Capybara.



After finishing the vegetables, some capybaras went a little bit further from their hut to continue eating the grass.





And finally one of them got tired of eating and found some cozy place for relax ;-)





I think they're pretty good at relaxing, aren't they?...



During our walk around the zoo we were leaving and coming back to The South America Park few times hoping for an opportunity to make better shots. Each time we came back we tried hard to find capybara again.





Sadly, there were no capybara pups, and we didn't see swimming capybaras. They have a nice pool with glass so that you can see them in water. Although they weren't the main attraction of this zoo, we were happy to see them there. The weather was not perfect for taking photos too, but at least it stopped raining when we found capybara. I hope to make more trips like that in the future / ^ t^).

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