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Paid for by the Candidate

Strange animal sighted, photographed

web posted May 1, 2006
Reader submitted photo
MERRIWETHER – A comment of sightings of small “kangaroos” in the Wandering Minds section has drawn many reader comments. Over the weekend, one reader sent EdgefieldDaily.com photos of their sightings in the McCormick-Edgefield County line area near Highway 28.

“At first glance they look like very large rabbits. But their ears are short and they move more like a deer than rabbit. Almost like a very big Ginny pig. We saw them on Highway 28 in McCormick County, in the Bethany Baptist Church yard; it is just up the road from the community called Lost Wilderness,” she wrote in an e-mail. The sightings photographed took place in February of 2005.

The reader stated they contacted the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the animal was known to be in the area but they were, “not very concerned about a non native animal loose,” they wrote.
                                                                                   Reader submitted photo
We contacted a local , Jerry Garvin of Trenton retired from the Ecology lab and the Univesity of Gerogia, and he identified the animal in the picture as Dolechotis patagonum, commonly known as the Patagonian cavy. The Patagonian cavy breeds year round and is generally found in pairs that are monogamous and in small groups of ten to fifteen members. Gestation periods usually run around three months and the offspring are able to run within hours of birth and are born with their fur. Two to three offspring are normal in the births. The young are fully independent in two to three weeks and reach sexual maturity in two months. The cavy is native to Brazil and surrounding South American countries.

Mr. Garvin said the cavy has no natural predators in the local area.



 

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Heritage Jubilee 2006
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