Escaped capybara spotted at sewage treatment plant In California

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My favorite animal is the capybara, and Gary Peare knows it, so he sent me the following story about a capybara that was spotted by Nick Kamp, a wastewater operator at a sewage treatment plant in California.

"It had the body of a pig, but it had a longer nose and head to it," Kamp said.

He said the capybara appeared calm and serene.

"He'd come up and look at us and go back down," he said. "At times, it would swim with its head just out of the water, and other times, it would swim totally submerged."

It locked eyes with Kamp before submerging into the wastewater.

"You could see just bubbles that were coming up to the surface where it was swimming," he said.

UPDATE: This video was in the comments. It's too good not to post:

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

I love that capybara means “Grass Master”
http://orbitnet.com JIMWICh

Maybe it’s time I turned the Capybaralabra into a Kickstarter project…

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1760668&l=86ea965dad&id=588539016
RevelryByNight

Of all the watering holes in all of California, Capybara had to stroll into one filled with poo.
Glen Able

Very cute. Sadly the only times I’ve seen Capybaras mentioned before are as a sort of yardstick for how quickly a body can be completely devoured by piranha.
KBert

Rodent in sewage. WOW!!!
Chloramphenicol

SPOOOOOOOOOOOONNNN!
Tribune

I welcome the invasion of our new rodent overlords.
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

Capybaras are very serene. They even stay cool when being punched in the face by a monkey: http://senorgif.memebase.com/2011/08/09/funny-gifs-monkey-punches-capybara/
nartan

Caybara’s pretty much do what they want though: http://vimeo.com/7989350
Donald Petersen

Looks like he’s happier than a pig in shit.
jnine123

We have smaller versions of those in our city park here in S. Louisiana. (nutria) They do love swimming in that disgusting water.
Manuel Enrique Herrera López

El Chigüiro errante
Flashman

Are we sure that isn’t the Chupapybara?
http://twitter.com/slowtiger slowtiger

Have a look at http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2558 for a really cute drawn capybara.
JoshP

aren’t these things delicious as well as being cute?
peromyscus

The capybara in the music video is one big-ass rat.

Can I have one?
http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW

Capybara’s are fish according to the roman catholic church. You can eat them during lent. True story.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Sue-Luckette-Falco/669436450 Sue Luckette-Falco
  
  Must be the Pope got money to get rid of the Capybara’s.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Philip-Garza/1320821432 Philip Garza

If you’re a capybara, everything’s OK, all the time.
Brett Hetherington

Lovely in so many, many ways…
Tom B

Mark, come to São Paulo, we got feral capybaras! —> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLdBxfMS3jc