''Cavia guianae'' is a

guinea pig The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus '' Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. It is found in southern

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, Guyana, and portions of northern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Some biologists believe it to be a

feral A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...

offshoot of the

domestic guinea pig The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus '' Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the an ...

, ''Cavia porcellus''; others subsume it under the wild cavy, '' Cavia aperea''. Molecular data collected show there is little genetic differentiation in ''C.a. guianae'' known to be a lowland locality in comparison to ''C. anolaimae'' which are predominantly highland populations.

References

Sources * Woods C. A. and C. W. Kilpatrick. 2005. Hystricognathi pp. 1538-1600 ''in'' D. E. Wilson and M. A. Reeder, eds. ''Mammal Species of the World'', 3rd edition, p. 1553. * *Dunnum, Jonathan L.; Salazar-Bravo, Jorge (2010–11). "Molecular systematics, taxonomy and biogeography of the genus Cavia (Rodentia: Caviidae): Systematics of Cavia". ''Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research''. 48 (4): 376–388. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0469.2009.00561.x. Citations Guinea pigs Fauna of northern South America Rodents of South America Mammals described in 1901 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas {{rodent-stub