Capybara
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Rodentia
Suborder:	Hystricomorpha
Family:	Caviidae
Subfamily:	Hydrochoerinae
Genus:	Hydrochoerus
Species:	H. hydrochaeris
Binomial name
Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris (Linnaeus, 1766)
Range

The capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is the largest extant rodent in the world. Its closest relatives are agouti, chinchillas, coyphillas, and guinea pigs. Native to South America, the capybara inhabits savannas and dense forests and lives near bodies of water. It is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as 100 individuals, but usually lives in groups of 10–20 individuals. The capybara is not a threatened species, though it is hunted for its meat and skin.

Etymology[link]

Its common name, derived from kapiÿva in the Guarani language, means "master of the grasses",^[2] while its scientific name, both hydrochoerus and hydrochaeris, comes from Greek ὕδωρ (hydor = water) + χοίρος (choiros = pig, hog).^[3][4]

Classification and phylogeny[link]

The capybara and the lesser capybara belong to the subfamily Hydrochoerinae along with the rock cavies. The living capybaras and their extinct relatives were previously classified in their own family Hydrochoeridae.^[5] Since 2002, molecular phylogenetic studies have recognized a close relationship between Hydrochoerus and Kerodon^[6] supporting placement of both genera in a subfamily of Caviidae.^[3] Paleontological classifications have yet to incorporate this new taxonomy, and continue to use Hydrochoeridae for all capybaras, while using Hydrochoerinae for the living genus and its closest fossil relatives, such as Neochoerus.^[7][8] The taxonomy of fossil hydrochoerines is also in a state of flux. In recent years, the diversity of fossil hydrochoerines has been substantially reduced.^[7][8] This is largely due to the recognition that capybara molar teeth show strong variation in shape over the life of an individual.^[7] In one instance, material once referred to four genera and seven species on the basis of differences in molar shape is now thought to represent differently aged individuals of a single species, Cardiatherium paranense.^[7]

Description[link]

Skull

Capybaras have heavy, barrel-shaped bodies and short heads with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of their body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. The sweat glands of the capybara can be found in its haired skin surface, an unusual trait among rodents.^[5] The animal lacks underhair and there is little difference between the guard hair and overhair. Adult capybaras grow to 107 to 134 cm (3.51 to 4.40 ft) in length, stand 50 to 64 cm (20 to 25 in) tall at the withers and typically weigh 35 to 66 kg (77 to 150 lb), with an average in the Venezuelan llanos of 48.9 kg (108 lb).^[9][10] The top recorded weight are 91 kg (200 lb) for a wild female from Brazil and 73.5 kg (162 lb) for a wild male from Uruguay.^[5][11] The dental formula is Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \tfrac{ 1.1.0.0}{ 1.1.3.3} .^[5] Capybaras have slightly webbed feet and a vestigial tail.^[5] Their back legs are slightly longer than their front legs and their muzzles are blunt with eyes, nostrils, and ears on top of their head. Females are slightly heavier than males.

Its karyotype has 2n = 66 and FN = 102.^[3]

Ecology[link]

Group at Hato La Fe in the Los Llanos region of Venezuela

Capybaras are semiaquatic mammals^[10] found throughout almost all countries of South America (except Chile^[2]) in densely forested areas near bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds and marshes,^[9] as well as flooded savannah and along rivers in tropical forest. Capybara have flourished in cattle ranches.^[5] They roam in home ranges averaging 10 hectares in high-density populations.^[5]

Many escapees from captivity can also be found in similar watery habitats around the world. Sightings are fairly common in Florida, although a breeding population has not yet been confirmed.^[12] In 2011, it was spotted in the Central Coast of California.^[13]

A Capybara grazes in Shepreth Wildlife Park

Diet and predation[link]

Capybaras foraging

Capybaras are herbivores, grazing mainly on grasses and aquatic plants,^[9][14] as well as fruit and tree bark.^[10] They are very selective feeders^[15] and will feed on the leaves of one species and disregard other species surrounding it. They eat a greater variety of plants during the dry season, as fewer plants are available. While they eat grass during the wet season, they have to switch to more abundant reeds during the dry season.^[16] Plants that capybaras eat during the summer lose their nutritional value in the winter and thus are not consumed at that time.^[15] The capybara's jaw hinge is not perpendicular and they thus chew food by grinding back-and-forth rather than side-to-side.^[17] Capybaras are coprophagous, 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. They may also regurgitate food to masticate again, similar to cud-chewing by a cow.^[18]

Like its cousin the guinea pig, the capybara does not have the capacity to synthesize vitamin C, and capybaras not supplemented with vitamin C in captivity have been reported to develop gum disease as a sign of scurvy.^[19]

They can have a life span of 8–10 years in the wild,^[20] but live less than four years on average, as they are "a favourite food of jaguar, puma, ocelot, eagle and caiman".^[2] The capybara is also the preferred prey of the anaconda.^[21]

Natural history[link]

Group of capybaras

Capybaras are very gregarious. While they do sometimes live solitarily, they are more commonly found in groups that average 10–20 individuals, with two to four adult males, four to seven adult females and the rest juveniles.^[22] Capybara groups can consist of as many as 50 or 100 individuals during the dry season,^[18][23] when the animals gather around available water sources. Males are organized in stable, linear hierarchies. The dominant male in each group is significantly heavier than any of the subordinates, but among subordinates, status is not correlated with weight.^[24] The dominant male is positioned in the center of the group while subordinates are on the periphery. These hierarchies are established early in life among the young with play fights and mock copulations.^[22] The most dominant males have access to the best resources.^[24] Capybaras are very vocal and, when in groups, chatter with each other to establish social bonds, dominance or general group census.^[23] They can make dog-like barks^[18] when threatened or when females are herding young.^[25] Capybaras have two different scent glands; a morillo, located on the snout, and an anal gland.^[26] Both sexes have those glands, but males have larger morillos and their anal pockets can open more easily. The anal glands of males are also lined with detachable hairs. A crystalline form of scent secretion is coated on these hairs and are released when in contact with objects like plants. These hairs have a longer-lasting scent mark and are tasted by other capybaras. A capybara marks by rubbing its morillo on an object or by walking over a scrub and marking with its anal gland. A capybara can spread its scent further by urinating. However, females usually mark without urinating and mark less frequently than males overall. Females mark more often during the wet season when they are in estrus. In addition to objects, males will also mark females.^[26]

Mother with typical litter of four babies

Reproduction[link]

Capybara family swimming

When in estrus, the female's scent changes subtly and nearby males begin pursuit.^[24] In addition, a female will alert males she is in estrus by whistling though her nose.^[18] During mating, the female has the advantage and mating choice. Capybaras mate only in water, and if a female does not want to mate with a certain male, she will either submerge or leave the water.^[18][23] Dominant males are highly protective of the females, but they usually cannot prevent all the subordinates from copulating.^[24] The larger the group, the harder it is for the male to watch all the females. Dominant males secure significantly more matings than each subordinate, but subordinate males, as a class, are responsible for more matings than each dominant male.^[24] The lifespan of the capybara's sperm is longer than that of other rodents.^[27]

Lounging in a shallow pool in captivity

Capybara gestation is 130–150 days, and usually produces a litter of four capybara babies, but may produce between one and eight in a single litter.^[5] Birth is on land and the female will rejoin the group within a few hours of delivering the newborn capybaras, which will join the group as soon as they are mobile. Within a week, the young can eat grass, but will continue to suckle—from any female in the group—until weaned at about 16 weeks. The young will form a group within the main group.^[2] Alloparenting has been observed in this species.^[23] Breeding peaks between April and May in Venezuela and between October and November in Mato Grosso, Brazil.^[5] Like other rodents, the front teeth of capybaras grow continually to compensate for the constant wear from eating grasses;^[2] their cheek teeth also grow continuously.^[17]

Activities[link]

Capybaras are excellent swimmers, and can remain completely submerged for up to five minutes,^[9] an ability they use to evade predators. Capybaras can sleep in water if need be, only keeping their noses out of the water. During midday, as temperatures increase, they wallow in water and then graze in late afternoons and early evenings.^[5] They rest around midnight and then continue to graze before dawn.

Conservation and human interaction[link]

A 6-week old pet capybara being bottle fed

Capybaras are on the IUCN list,^[1] but are not considered a threatened species; their population is stable through most of their South American range, though in some areas, hunting has reduced their numbers.^[2][9]

Capybaras are hunted for their meat and pelts in some areas,^[28] 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.^[2]

Capybaras can be found in many areas in zoos and parks,^[17] and may live for 12 years in captivity.^[2] Capybaras are gentle and will usually allow humans to pet and hand-feed them.

Capybara are farmed for meat and skins in South America.^[29] The meat is considered unsuitable to eat in some areas, while in other areas it is considered an important source of protein.^[5] During Lent, capybara meat is especially popular in parts of South America, especially in Venezuela, as the Catholic Church, in a special dispensation, is claimed to have allowed eating capybara meat when meat consumption was otherwise not allowed. Accounts differ of how the dispensation arose.^[30] Capybaras are occasionally kept as pets in the United States,^[31] though it is illegal in some states and in various other countries.

See also[link]

• Beaver
• In medicine, see Kurloff cells

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris

Wikispecies has information related to: Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris

• Animal Diveristy Web Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris
• ARKive - images and movies of the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris)

Daniel Johnston
Johnston in December 2006
Background information
Birth name	Daniel Dale Johnston
Born	(1961-01-22) January 22, 1961 (age 51) Sacramento, California, United States
Origin	West Virginia, United States
Genres	Lo-fi, outsider music
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, visual artist
Years active	1978–present
Labels	Yip Eye Music Atlantic Records
Website	hihowareyou.com

Daniel Dale Johnston (born January 22, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in Waller, Texas.

Johnston has been diagnosed with manic depression and schizophrenia which has been a recurring problem throughout his life.^[1][2]

Early life[link]

Johnston was born in Sacramento, California, and grew up in the northern panhandle of West Virginia between Ohio and Pennsylvania near Chester and New Cumberland, West Virginia. He began recording music in the late 1970s on a $59 Sanyo monaural Boombox, singing and playing piano and chord organ. Following graduation from Oak Glen High School, Johnston spent a few weeks at Abilene Christian University in West Texas, but soon dropped out. Later he attended the East Liverpool branch of Kent State University.

Music career[link]

Johnston's musical work gained some notoriety when he moved to Austin, Texas. Johnston began to attract the attention of the local press and gain a following augmented in numbers by his habit of handing out tapes to people he met. Live performances were well-attended and hotly anticipated.^[3]

His local standing led to him being featured in a 1985 episode of the MTV program The Cutting Edge featuring performers from Austin's "New Sincerity" music scene.^[4] Subsequently he performed at the 1985 Woodshock music festival in Austin, where he was featured in a short documentary of the festival, Woodshock.

In 1988, Johnston visited New York City and recorded 1990 with producer Kramer^[5] at his Noise New York studio. It was released in 1990 on Kramer's Shimmy-Disc label. This was Johnston's first experience in a professional recording environment after a decade of releasing home-made cassette recordings. His mental health further deteriorated during the making of 1990.

Interest in Johnston increased when Kurt Cobain was frequently photographed wearing a t-shirt featuring the cover image of Johnston's album Hi, How Are You which music journalist Everett True gave him. In spite of Johnston being resident in a mental hospital at the time, a bidding war to sign him ensued. He refused to sign a multi-album deal with Elektra Records because Metallica was on the label's roster and he was convinced that they were possessed by Satan and would hurt him. He also dropped his manager who brokered the deal, because Johnston believed he too was possessed by Satan.^[6] Ultimately he signed with Atlantic Records and released Fun, produced by Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers in 1994.^[7]

Johnston contributed two songs to the soundtrack for Larry Clark's controversial 1995 film Kids, produced by Folk Implosion and Sebadoh's frontman, Lou Barlow. Johnston later covered Schoolhouse Rock!'s "Unpack Your Adjectives" for a compilation of the popular education songs called Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks in 1996. In 1989 Johnston released the album It's Spooky in collaboration with Half Japanese singer Jad Fair.

In 1990, Johnston played at a music festival in Austin, Texas. On the way back to West Virginia on a small, private two-seater plane piloted by his father Bill, Johnston had a manic episode believing he was Casper the Friendly Ghost and removed the key from the plane's ignition and threw it out of the plane. His father, a former Air Force pilot, managed to successfully crash-land the plane, even though "there was nothing down there but trees". Although the plane was destroyed, Johnston and his father emerged with only minor injuries. As a result of this episode, Johnston was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.^[8]

In 2004, he released The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered, a two-disc compilation. The first disc featured many artists, such as Tom Waits, Beck, TV on the Radio, Jad Fair, Eels, Bright Eyes, Calvin Johnson, Death Cab for Cutie, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips covering songs written by Johnston. The second disc featured Johnston's original recordings of the songs.

In 2005, Texas-based theater company Infernal Bridegroom Productions received a Multi-Arts Production/MAP Fund grant^[9] to work with Johnston to create a rock opera based on his music, titled Speeding Motorcycle.

A 2005, Dutch documentary about Johnston for the TV series R.A.M. was followed in 2006 by The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Jeff Feuerzeig's documentary, four years in the making, collated some of the vast amount of recorded material Johnston (and in some case, others) had produced over the years to portray his life and music. The film won high praise, receiving the Director's Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. The film also inspired more interest in Johnston's work, such as the film's theme song, "I Had Lost My Mind", and increased his pull as a touring artist.

In 2006, Johnston's own Eternal Yip Eye Music label released his first greatest hits compilation, Welcome to My World.^[10] He also appeared as musical guest on The Henry Rollins Show on which he performed "Mask" and "Care Less" (the latter was exclusive to the internet).

Through the next few years Johnston toured extensively across the world, and continued to attract press attention. In 2008, Dick Johnston, Daniel's brother and manager, revealed that "a movie deal based on the artist's life and music had been finalized with a tentative 2011 release."^[11] He also said that a deal had been struck with the Converse company for a "signature series" Daniel Johnston shoe.^[11] Later, it was revealed by Dick Johnston that Converse had dropped the plan.^[12] In late 2008, Adjustable Productions released Johnston's first concert DVD, The Angel and Daniel Johnston – Live at the Union Chapel, featuring a 2007 appearance in Islington, London.^[13]

On January 31, 2009, Daniel Johnston joined the band The Swell Season on a broadcast of Austin City Limits (previously recorded on September 28, 2008) to perform the song "Life in Vain".

His latest album, Is and Always Was, was released on October 6, 2009 on his Eternal Yip Eye Music record label. In 2009, it was announced that Matt Groening had chosen Johnston to perform at the edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he curated in May 2010 in Minehead, England. Later that year, he was invited by rock band Cage the Elephant to appear at Starry Nights Fest, an upstart music festival in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Johnston performed a brief solo set before being joined on stage by Cage, who backed performances of several songs, including "Speeding Motorcycle" and "True Love Will Find You in the End".

Reviews[link]

One critic from Pitchfork Media writes that Johnston's recordings range from "spotty to brilliant."^[14]

Art career[link]

Johnston's "Hi, How Are You" mural in Austin, Texas

His artwork is shown in galleries such as in London's Aquarium Gallery and New York's Clementine Gallery. both in 2006, and the 2008 Liverpool Biennial. Currently his work is being exhibited as "The Museum of Love" at Verge Gallery in Sacramento, California.

In 1993 Johnston was commissioned to paint a mural of the Hi, How Are You? frog (also known as "Jeremiah the Innocent") from his 1983 album cover on the side of the Sound Exchange record store located on the corner of 21st and Guadalupe in Austin, Texas (the "Drag").^[15] At the time, the frog image had recently become nationally recognized from media images of Kurt Cobain wearing a "Hi, How Are You?" t-shirt during Nirvana's promotion of their 1991 album Nevermind.^[16] The building remained unoccupied until 2004 when a Mexican grill franchise called Baja Fresh took ownership and decided to paint over the mural. Diego Gonzalez Joven, an international student from The University of Texas at Austin convinced the managers and contractors to keep the mural intact, later that year it became a sushi and Thai restaurant called Crave.^[17] In Spring 2008, a Jeremiah the Innocent collectible figurine was released in limited runs of four different colors.^[18]

As of June 2010, a biopic about Johnston's life featuring Gabriel Sunday of My Suicide is in production.^[19]

March 1, 2012, Brooklyn based photographer Jung Kim announced her photo book and traveling exhibition project with Johnston, a collaboration 4 years in the making. It is cited on the project's Kickstarter campaign page that the photo book and first exhibition will launch at SXSW 2013 in Austin, Texas, hosted by Louis Black who was an early supporter of Johnston.^[20]

March 13, 2012, Johnston released his first comic book, Space Ducks – An Infinite Comic Book of Musical Greatness at SXSW in Austin, Texas, published by BOOM! Studios. The comic book is complemented by the Space Ducks album and an iOS app. ^[21]

New media[link]

Daniel Johnston worked with Dr. Fun Fun and Smashing Studios to develop an iPhone platform game called "Hi, How Are You". The game is similar to Frogger, but features Johnston's art and music.^[22]

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Official[link]

• Hi How Are You: Daniel Johnston's official website (maintained by the Johnston family)
• Daniel Johnston's official fan website (also maintained by the Johnstons)
• Daniel Johnston's digital download site (also maintained by the Johnstons)
• Daniel Johnston's Book "Hi, How Are You?" (maintained by Jack Medicine)

Other[link]

• Daniel Johnston at the Internet Movie Database
• New York Times article on Daniel Johnston (Feb 2006)
• Daniel Johnston on MusicAustin^{[dead link]}
• Secret Tones review of The Devil and Daniel Johnston (by John Barron)
• 2001 Daniel Johnston interview with Jon Niccum
• "Songs of Pain" interview with Daniel Johnston (Apr. 2008) on MonsterFresh.com
• Daniel Johnston, Paris, 2007
• Exclusive Images of unreleased Daniel Johnston signature model Converse
• Feature on Daniel Johnston in German magazine ZOO, Summer 2005
• "Colouring Daniel Johnston" (Jan. 2012), a tribute to Daniel Johnston from spanish bands