Cavia porcellus (Linnaeus 1758)

[Mus] porcellus Linnaeus 1758, Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 59.

Type Locality: Brazil, Pernambuco (questionable).

Vernacular Names: Domesticated Guinea Pig.

Synonyms: Cavia anolaimae J. A. Allen 1916; Cavia cobaya Pallas 1766; Cavia cutleri Bennett 1836; Cavia leucopyga Cabanis 1848; Cavia longipilis Fitzinger 1879 .

Distribution: Domesticated worldwide; possibly feral in N South America.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Husson (1978:451) reserved the use of porcellus to denote domesticated guinea pigs, which are probably derived from tschudii (Corbet and Hill, 1991:201), but also see Hückinghaus (1961:96), who regarded porcellus as a synonym of aperea . This species may be a domesticated animal with no established wild populations, K. F. Koopman (pers. comm.) believed that N South American populations may be feral domesticated guinea pigs; but see comments under aperea . Cavia aperea can be differentiated from porcellus by the presence of the processus cupularis (da Silva Neto, 2000). Karyotype has 2n=64 and FN=128 (George and Weir, 1974).