Fascinating Facts About Charming Capybaras For Capybara Day

Today is Capybara Day; to celebrate, we’ve picked our favourite facts about these charming creatures. Plus, learn how Stikins® can help you stay calm as a capybara when it comes to keeping your family’s kit safe and sound.

Fascinating Facts About Charming Capybaras

Capybaras have become something of a sensation around the world and pop up everywhere – on social media, in films and TV, on clothing and products – there are even capybara cafes! To celebrate Capybara Day, we’ve picked our favourite facts about these popular creatures. Did you know that:

• The name Capybara comes from the Tupi people of Brazil and means “one who eats slender leaves".
• Capybaras belong to the group Hydrochoerus, from the Greek for “water” and “pig”. There are two species; the greater capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, from the Greek for “water” and “joy”) and the lesser capybara (Hydrochoerus isthmius, for the strips of land between water where they live). 
• Greater capybaras live in South America (except Chile), Grenada, California, and Panama. Lesser capybaras live primarily in Panama. Greater capybaras are larger and stockier with coarse red-brown coats (yellow-brown underneath), while lesser capybaras are slimmer with softer, darker fur.
• Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents and females are usually larger than males. Lesser capybaras are 90cm long and weigh around 28kg; greater capybaras are 106-134cm long and weigh 33-66kg. The largest known capybara reached 113kg.
• Capybaras live near lakes, rivers, and ponds in forests, rainforests, wetlands, and flooded savannas.
• Capybaras are semi-aquatic mammals adapted for land and water. They have webbed toes and quick-drying fur. Their ears, eyes, and nose are aligned high on their heads to monitor their surroundings while in the water. Their hairless ears have a fold to close the ear canal and they can close their nostrils to keep out water. Capybaras can stay fully underwater for 5 minutes and will sleep in water by resting their noses on the water bank. They’re also pretty agile on land and can run at up to 22mph.
• Capybaras are crepuscular or active at dawn and dusk. They spend the hottest part of the day in the water, graze in the early evening, rest around midnight, and graze again before dawn.
• Most rodents don’t have sweat glands and rely on panting and shade to keep cool. Capybaras have sweat glands throughout their skin and regulate their temperature by wallowing in water and mud.
• Capybaras are herbivores and eat up to 4kg of grass per day. They also eat aquatic plants, fruit, and tree bark, usually during the dry season when fewer plants are available and grasses lose nutritional value. Capybaras are very picky eaters; studies suggest that 80% of their diet is just five species of grass, which they completely strip while ignoring neighbouring plants.
• Capybaras have 20 teeth; 4 incisors, 4 premolars, and 12 molars. Like all rodents, their incisors keep growing but their other teeth (known as cheek teeth) also continue to grow. They use their sharp incisors to crop grass, which they grind using the ridged surfaces of their molars. A capybara’s jaw is not hinged perpendicularly, which means they grind their food back and forward (rather than side to side).
• Capybaras find it difficult to fully digest their food and use two methods to extract as many nutrients as possible. First, they regurgitate food to chew it a second time. Second, they are autocoprophagous and eat their own poop – effectively eating their food twice.
• Like humans and guinea pigs, capybaras do not produce vitamin C, which means they can get scurvy.
• Capybaras are highly social creatures that usually live in groups of 10-20. Group territories often overlap the same body of water, which means groups can reach up to 100 individuals during dry seasons when water is scarce. While there is no official collective noun for a group of capybaras, they are sometimes called a “meditation”.
• Other animals often sit or ride around on capybaras – including birds, rabbits, monkeys, and turtles. This is mutualism where both animals benefit from a behaviour. The animals eat pests in the capybara’s fur, which keeps the capybara healthy and provides food and transportation for the animal. This behaviour has earned capybaras the nicknames “nature’s ottoman” and “moving chairs”.
• Capybaras are highly communicative with a complex vocabulary of barks, chirps, whistles, huffs, and purrs.
• Capybaras mate in water; if a female is not interested she will simply swim away or dive underwater. A litter can have 1-8 pups (4 is typical) and pregnancy lasts around 150 days.
• Baby capybaras are precocial or fully developed at birth. They weigh 1-2kg, have their eyes open, a full coat of fur, and can move around. They receive milk for 3-4 months but start grazing solid foods within a week of birth. The young form their own group within their parent’s group and are fed by their mothers and other females. Capybara live between 8 to 10 years and females tend to live longer than males.
• Capybaras are often depicted with a small yellow or orange fruit on their head. This refers to yuzu baths, which are a winter solstice tradition (for humans!) in Japan. In 1982, a zoo employee saw their capybaras gathering in a puddle of hot water and decided they would benefit from their own yuzu bath. Capybara yuzu baths are now practiced by zoos across Japan throughout the winter - and occasionally result in a capybara emerging from the water with a yuzu fruit on their head!

Keep As Calm As A Capybara With Stikins® Name Labels

Keeping track of your family’s belongings can be chaos. Between school, home, and other adventures, it’s all too easy for items to go missing along the way. Name labels provide a simple way to make sure that everything makes it home – and with Stikins®, it’s quicker and simpler than ever.

Stikins® are multipurpose stick on name labels. This means you can label pretty much all your family’s stuff with one product that takes seconds to apply. This is all thanks to our unique adhesive that forms super strong bonds so your stickers simply stick on and stay on.

You simply peel each name sticker off the backing sheet and apply firmly onto the wash-care label of fabric items and directly onto non-fabric items. This includes school uniform, clothes, towels, bedding, toys, bags, shoes, lunch boxes, water bottles, equipment for sports and activities, stationery, and phones or tablets.

Stikins® are bright white, dirt-resistant name labels that are personalised with a bold black font. They are super clear and easy to read, which means anyone can check who owns what in a glance. You can choose one or two lines of text with up to 18 characters per line (including spaces). A simple name works best for closed spaces, like schools. You can add contact information (like a phone number) for items that are travelling further afield.

We offer four pack sizes of 30, 60, 90, or 120 name labels and you can order online at any time or by phone during office hours. It takes minutes to order and we’ll post your labels same day (order by 3pm, Mon-Fri) or next working day by first class post.

So, why not get your family’s belongings labelled with Stikins® so you can stop worrying about lost property and be a calm capybara!