Domesticated Guinea Pig – Cavia porcellus

Cavia porcellusLinnaeus, 1758

Accepterad namn, Mammal Species of the World 2005

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).

• Wilson, D and Reeder, D. (eds.) 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3rd ed. -- 2142 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press.