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| Guinea pigs
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Cavia porcellus Cavia aperea Cavia tschudii Cavia guianae Cavia anolaimae Cavia nana Cavia fulgida Cavia magna |
Contrary to popular belief, cavies are not pigs, nor do they come from Guinea. Although there are more than 20 different species, the one most familiar to people is C. porcellus, the common guinea pig. The majority of information in this article is about the common guinea pig.
The common guinea pig was first domesticated about 2000 BC by the Inca of South America, in what is now Peru. They continue to be an important food source in the region, subsisting off a family's vegetable scraps as a half pet/half future meal. Guinea pigs are the dish of honor (called cuy) at some Peruvian wedding feasts and play the role of evil-spirit collector in traditional healing rituals.
Dutch and EnglishEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England traders brought guinea pigs to EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se, where they quickly became popular as exotic petThis page is about domestic animals. For several meanings of the acronym PET see PET. A pet or companion animal is a domesticated animal that is kept by humans for companionship or for the beauty of its appearance or utterances, rather than for economic rs. How they came to be thought of as "pigs" is not clear, it is thought that some of the sounds they make reminded people of pigs. This did not happen only in EnglishThe English language is a West Germanic language, originating from England. It is the third most common "first" language (native speakers), with around 402 million people in 2002. English has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the mil; the GermanGerman (called Deutsch in German in which germanisch refers to prechristian times), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union. word for them is Meerschweinchen , literally "Little Sea Pigs", FrenchFrench le francais la langue francaise is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered only by Spanish and Portuguese. French is the 11th most spoken language in the world, spoken by about 77 million people (called Francophones) as a mother to word is Cochon d'Inde , (Indian pig) the Dutch used to call it guinees biggetje (Guinean piglet), in Sweden they are called marsvin (a combination of the latin word mareA mare is a female horse. Mare is Latin for ocean A Lunar mare is an ancient basaltic lava floodplain on Earth's Moon, usually inside an impact basin. for ocean, and swedish svin which means pig). The scientific nameIn biology, binomial nomenclature is a standard convention used for naming species. As the word 'binomial' suggests, the scientific name of a species is formed by the combination of two terms: the genus name and the species epithet or descriptor. The firs of a common species is Cavia porcellus, with porcellus being Latin for "little pig."The origin of "guinea" in the title guinea pig is even harder to explain. One theory is that the animals were brought to Europe by way of Guinea and people came to think they had come from there. Another theory is they were sold as the closest thing to a pig you could get for a guinea, an old British coin with a value of 21 shillings (1.05 GBP in the modern decimal currency). Since the Dutch name refers to Guinea rather than to the British coin and the fact that the first guinea pig was described in 1554 by the Swiss naturalist Konrad Gesner (more than a hundred years before the first guinea was struck), the former theory is more likely.
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