Cavia porcellus

The guinea pig, also known as the domestic guinea pig, cavy or domestic cavy, is a species of rodent. It belongs to the genus Cavia, family Caviidae, and its closest wild relatives include the montane guinea pig. Domestic guinea pigs typically weigh between 700 and 1,200 g and measure between 20 and 25 cm in length; most breeds have fur, and they have long front teeth that grow continuously, leading the animals to chew regularly to wear them down. They are social animals, and are skittish in response to noise or danger, evincing a freeze or flight strategy.

Cavia porcellus

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
guinea pigPBDB
Sits inside
CaviaPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Caviidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Caviidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 12 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesHolocene — about 2 of 2 occurrences17 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences512 ka0 Mya

2 occurrences of Cavia porcellus on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Cavia porcellus and its relatives

Holocene

Where Cavia porcellus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

17 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Cavia porcellus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Cavia porcellus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cavia porcellus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCavia through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)