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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Boga Bam here. For some reason,

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Speaker 1: not everybody loves rodents, but maybe because a few species

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Speaker 1: are pretty persistent in their efforts to share our homes

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Speaker 1: with us, and rats have long been credited with spreading

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Speaker 1: the bubonic plague, which killed millions of people in medieval

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Speaker 1: Europe and Asia, though technically it was the fleas that

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Speaker 1: rats and other small animals helped spread. But the taxonomic

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Speaker 1: order Rodentia is vast. A whopping of all mammal species

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Speaker 1: are rodents, which means the Norway rats you glimpse in

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Speaker 1: the shadows of the subway tunnel and the house mice

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Speaker 1: setting up a nursery in your attic are yes, both rodents,

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Speaker 1: but so are beavers, guinea pigs, porcupines, and chipmunks. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot to love there, but maybe none so charismatic

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Speaker 1: as the world's largest rodent, the capybara. Charisma is of

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Speaker 1: course very subjective and picture this though giant pig like

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Speaker 1: semi aquatic rodent about the size of a large dog,

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Speaker 1: whose eyes, ears, and nostrils sit basically at the top

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Speaker 1: of its head. They also have these weird, tiny webbed

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Speaker 1: feet that look kind of like hoofs. They're vegetarian and

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Speaker 1: eat between six and eight pounds of grass each day.

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Speaker 1: That's about two and a half to three and a

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Speaker 1: half kilos, and that's in addition to eating their first

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Speaker 1: poop of the morning. That poop contains lots of protein

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Speaker 1: from the microbes that have been feasting on the contents

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Speaker 1: of their intestines all night. Eating it allows them to

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Speaker 1: get nutrients out of the food that their system didn't

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Speaker 1: absorb the day before. Capabaras are native to Central and

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Speaker 1: South America, where they're doing extremely well. The International Union

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Speaker 1: for Conservation of Nature considers them a species of Least Concern,

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Speaker 1: even though they serve as a prey item for everything

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Speaker 1: from anticonda's to jaguars. And Capabaras need to stick pretty

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Speaker 1: close to the water wetland estuary river and not only

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Speaker 1: because they need to keep their skin moist, but also

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Speaker 1: because they require access to the grasses the grow near waterways.

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Speaker 1: About eight percent of their diet comes from five different

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Speaker 1: grass species. Another thing Capebara's need is each other. For

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Speaker 1: the article that this episode is based on, the team

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Speaker 1: at house Stuff Works spoke with Elizabeth Congdon, a capabara

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Speaker 1: researcher and professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at

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Speaker 1: Bethune Cookman University. She said capabaras are among the most

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Speaker 1: social of rodent species. Groups consist of a dominant male

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Speaker 1: and several subordinate females that tend to be related to

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Speaker 1: one another and their offspring. Females cooperate with one another

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Speaker 1: to the point of nursing another's infants and collectively defending

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Speaker 1: the young of the group against predators and potentially infanticidal males.

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Speaker 1: I've personally seen an adult female back down a large

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Speaker 1: spectacled cayman that was approaching her newborn. Groups of capabarras

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Speaker 1: can range from around ten two up to a hundred

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Speaker 1: during the dry season, and for the most part, their

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Speaker 1: daily activity involves a whole lot of chilling. Some have

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Speaker 1: called capabara's nature's ottomans because all sorts of animals seem

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Speaker 1: to enjoy sitting on a capybara's broad back. Monkeys, birds, cats,

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Speaker 1: other capybaras, you name it. Female capabarras like to play

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Speaker 1: with their young, teaching their daughters to be allies to

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Speaker 1: one another and sons to be competitive but since capybaras

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Speaker 1: have so many predators, and since a single male works

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Speaker 1: hard to keep as many females to himself as possible,

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Speaker 1: males are constantly on the lookout for funny business. Kongden said,

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Speaker 1: the male will aggressively defend his rank. These interactions between

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Speaker 1: males don't always reach the level of a full fight,

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Speaker 1: because grunting and chasing will usually do the trick. Females

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Speaker 1: not only stay in the group, but also help defend

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Speaker 1: territory against outsiders and predators by alarm calling when citing one.

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Speaker 1: And While it's true the capybaras are charming and some

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Speaker 1: people have begun keeping them as pets, which is legal

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Speaker 1: in some U S States like Texas and Pennsylvania, although

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Speaker 1: in most places you need to get a special license.

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Speaker 1: Keeping a capybara in your home isn't for everyone, or

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Speaker 1: even the vast majority of US. Papa bara's require a

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Speaker 1: lot of water space and friends. A solitary or even

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Speaker 1: pair of capa baras would probably be very unhappy. In Florida,

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Speaker 1: several have escaped, probably from a wildlife research facility, and

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Speaker 1: are hanging out in North Florida, possibly snuggling each other

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Speaker 1: with birds, sitting on their backs. It remains to be

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Speaker 1: seen whether Cape Barras will become Florida's next invasive speciets.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article the charismatic Cape

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Speaker 1: Barra is Chiller than Your Dog on how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com, written by Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is production

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Speaker 1: of by Heart Radio in partnership with how Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: and is produced by Tyler clang Or More podcasts from

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Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows