46 Fun Facts About Guinea Pig

Guinea pigs were first domesticated, as food, in which part of the world?

The Andes of South America: they are still raised for meat there, and many rural families keep them at home or let them roam indoors and out.

Linny the Guinea Pig leads which Nick Jr. team of classroom animals on musical rescue missions?

The Wonder Pets: the show grew out of two Linny shorts, animated by photographing a real baby guinea pig and moving the cut-up photos like paper dolls.

Which US president's children kept guinea pigs named Admiral Dewey and Bishop Doane at the White House?

Theodore Roosevelt: his sons once took the family pony, Algonquin, up in the White House elevator to cheer up their sick brother Archie.

Like humans but unlike most mammals, guinea pigs cannot make which vitamin?

Vitamin C: in 1907 two Norwegian doctors fed guinea pigs a grain diet to study beriberi and, by lucky accident, gave them scurvy instead.

What do startled groups of guinea pigs often do?

Scatter in all directions: a panicked group stampedes at random, though a guinea pig may instead freeze in place for long periods.

What is the call a guinea pig makes when it expects food?

A wheek: many pet guinea pigs learn to wheek whenever they hear a plastic bag rustle.

What is it called when a happily excited guinea pig hops repeatedly in the air?

Popcorning: young guinea pigs do it most, and they need enough room to exercise before they leap for joy.

In which country is it illegal to keep a single guinea pig without a companion?

Switzerland: when a pet loses its cage-mate, owners can rent a companion from a rent-a-guinea-pig service so they stay within the law.

Which comedian voiced the pet guinea pig in Eddie Murphy's 1998 film Dr. Dolittle?

Chris Rock: in the film, Dolittle's long-dormant gift for talking with animals returns after he nearly runs over a dog.

What is the correct term for a baby guinea pig?

Pup: a mother guinea pig has only two nipples, yet she can readily raise a litter of two to four pups.

What is a male guinea pig called?

A boar: a mixed group should have only one intact boar, because males will fight over the sows.

Why do guinea pigs constantly gnaw on wood and other hard materials?

Their front teeth grow continuously: all their teeth keep growing, so without enough tough food to wear them down they overgrow, making eating painful.

What do guinea pigs do with fibre fermented in their caecum?

Expel it as soft pellets and eat them again: guinea pigs usually eat these cecotropes straight from the anus.

What should make up the bulk of a pet guinea pig's diet?

Fresh grass hay such as timothy: vets say to offer it without limit, while too many pellets can bring on diarrhoea and painful gas.

Which foot condition can wire cage floors cause in guinea pigs?

Bumblefoot: the pressure sores can turn into deep infections that are hard to treat, so vets want solid floors covered with bedding.

By a 2004 estimate, roughly how many guinea pigs did Peruvians eat each year?

About 65 million: a Peruvian university has even exported extra-large guinea pigs bred for meat, hoping foreigners will try the dish.

Which city's cathedral has a Last Supper painting showing Christ and the disciples dining on guinea pig?

Cusco: colonial painters there copied European prints but added local touches, so Marcos Zapata's disciples dine on roast guinea pig.

How do Peru's traditional healers use guinea pigs?

Rubbed on a sick person's body to diagnose illness: afterwards the healer often cuts the animal open and reads its organs.

The guinea pig breed with a coat full of rosettes, or cowlicks, is called what?

Abyssinian: breeders avoid pairing two roan Abyssinians, because the gene behind the roan colouring can give their young eye and digestive defects.

The 'skinny pig' is a guinea pig strain that is what?

Almost hairless: skinny pigs keep hair only on the muzzle, legs and feet, and they need a warmer room than furred guinea pigs.

How do wild cavies, the guinea pig's closest relatives, usually find shelter?

Use burrows other animals dug: they neither dig nor build nests themselves, and they also hide in rock crevices and tunnels through dense plants.

Which giant rodent shares the guinea pig's family, Caviidae?

Capybara: this giant cousin has become a star in Japan, where zoos run hot spring baths for capybaras to soak in.

Which bedding do vets tell guinea pig owners to avoid?

Cedar shavings: their aromatic oils are believed to be harmful, so paper-based bedding is the safer choice.

Why are many antibiotics dangerous for guinea pigs?

Destroy gut bacteria: guinea pigs rely on those microbes to digest plants, so the wrong drug can bring on diarrhoea and even death.

As prey animals, what survival instinct makes guinea pigs tricky patients for vets?

They mask pain and signs of illness: a guinea pig can look normal until it is very sick, so weight loss or a hunched posture calls for a vet.

How good are guinea pigs at climbing?

Poor; most can only hop small obstacles: they are not good jumpers either, so a cage often needs no lid unless other pets are around.

What happens to the guinea pigs in Ellis Parker Butler's 'Pigs Is Pigs'?

They multiply: while officials argue over whether guinea pigs should ship at the livestock rate, the pair breed into more than four thousand.

Which actor voices Darwin, leader of the secret-agent guinea pigs, in Disney's G-Force (2009)?

Sam Rockwell: Darwin believes his team was genetically engineered, until he learns they are ordinary animals and he was simply bought from a pet shop.

At which times of day are guinea pigs naturally most active?

Dawn and dusk: in human care, though, many guinea pigs are active during the daytime too.

Which animated series had costumed guinea pigs attack the world?

South Park: the monsters were real guinea pigs in costumes, and Randy Marsh's shaky home-video footage spoofs Cloverfield.

How do guinea pigs feel about baths?

They groom themselves; a bath is only for medical reasons or a very grubby long-haired breed.

The Spanish word for guinea pig, cuy, derives from which indigenous language?

Quechua: the Spanish of Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia took cuy from quwi, and the animals still play a part in community religious ceremonies there.

What may a guinea pig do if its diet is changed suddenly?

Refuse to eat: guinea pigs learn early what counts as food, and some would rather starve than accept a new kind, so changes must be gradual.

What did the Staffordshire farm targeted by the Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs campaign do?

Bred guinea pigs for medical research: after six years of intimidation the owners gave up in 2005, and four activists were later jailed.

Which salad leaf do vets advise against feeding guinea pigs?

Iceberg lettuce: it is mostly water with little nutrition, while darker leaves such as romaine are fine to feed often.

Which disease do vets rank among the most significant in pet guinea pigs?

Pneumonia: healthy guinea pigs can carry the germs behind it, which strike when stress or another disease weakens the animal.

Spanish accounts say guinea pigs were the preferred sacrificial animal of which people?

The Inca: they kept guinea pigs and sacrificed them at festivals, and the animals remain a common religious offering in Peru today.

The German word for guinea pig, Meerschweinchen, literally means what?

Little sea pig: the usual explanation is that the animals came from over the sea and seemed pig-like, and Polish and Russian also call it a sea pig.

Which country first launched guinea pigs into orbital space flight, in March 1961?

The USSR: the guinea pig rode Sputnik 9 with a dog, some mice and a dummy cosmonaut on a test flight for the Vostok spacecraft.

Paddington creator Michael Bond also wrote a children's series about a guinea pig named what?

Olga da Polga: Bond named her after the family's own guinea pig, or rather a whole line of them, and she spins tall tales like Baron Munchausen.

The Japanese word for guinea pig, morumotto, is borrowed from the name of which other animal?

The marmot: Dutch traders mixed the animal up with the marmot, and in Japanese the word also means a human test subject.

A guinea pig that rumbles while swaying its weight from side to side is usually showing what?

Dominance: if two rivals both won't back down, the standoff can escalate from rumbling to chasing and even biting.

Which chemist used a guinea pig in his 1780 calorimeter experiments?

Antoine Lavoisier: from the ice the animal's body heat melted, he concluded that breathing is a slow combustion, like a candle burning.

In The Magician's Nephew, a guinea pig is the first creature to reach which place?

The Wood between the Worlds: when Digory and Polly arrive, they find the guinea pig nosing about in the grass with a yellow ring taped round its middle.

The 1933 US bestseller 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs spurred the growth of which movement?

Consumer protection: it warned that Americans were test subjects for unsafe foods and drugs, and it is often cited as a spur to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The WWII Guinea Pig Club was formed by airmen undergoing experimental surgery after which injuries?

Severe burns: Archibald McIndoe's then-untested skin grafts gave the club its name, and he even let his patients drink beer on the wards.