10 SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT CAPYBARAS

A capybara is happy to help disseminate capybara facts—except for one really embarrassing one.

“FACT 1: Capybaras are the biggest rodents in the world,” states an omniscient narrator, and a rotund capybara corroborates: “We’re huge!” The facts keep coming and the capybara keeps chiming in, but after the narrator supplies the ninth fact—“Capybaras are herbivores”—the rodent announces, “Enough about that. CAPYBARAS ARE THE CUTEST! And that’s ALL anyone needs to know!” The narrator plows ahead: “FACT 10: Capybaras can help their digestion of tough plants and get essential nutrients by eating their own—” The capybara’s well-placed foot interrupts the text finishing the narrator’s thought, which the rodent completes by shouting, “PIZZA!” The narrator isn’t having it: “FACT 11: Capybaras DO NOT eat pizza.” The capybara doubles down: “FACT 12: Capybaras order PIZZA every day!” The back-and-forth gets increasingly heated until a monkey consults a book that relays the ugly truth about capybara digestion: “CAPYBARAS EAT THEIR OWN….” The big scatological reveal (which, fortunately, remains an idea rather than an image) is, of course, a giggle-maker, but the meta silliness that has preceded it is just as funny. Watt’s thick linework cleanly defines the book’s cartoonish imagery, most centrally the lumpish, ultimately mortified capybara, who can convey more with his eyes than a silent-movie actor.

A hilarious meta take on the sometimes disgusting truth about animal gut health.