It is at this point where I feel obligated to post my hard-won photos of the feral guinea pigs of central Brazil…
Found in the small town of Conceição de Macabu, a hundred or so miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro, it was very risky and dangerous to approach them as closely as we did, as you’ll appreciate our efforts and the risks involved when you see these photos (makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck just thinking about it). You can even see them in their natural dwellings.
Brazilian guinea pigs 1
Brazilian guinea pigs 2
Brazilian guinea pigs 3
All kidding aside, they really do live on that little island. Town Hall gave the main square a makeover a few years ago, including a nice little carp pond with a guinea pig island in the middle for the kids. The animals live their entire lives in the warm Brazilian climate on the island and multiply quite nicely.
And of course, this compels me to relate yet another bizarre childhood memory. Sometime in the late seventies or early eighties, my dad took me to the Agrignon Zoo. They must have been feeling the budget crunch even then, because one of their displays was a cage of gerbils. In the center of the cage, abandoned like some kind of crack baby, was a hairless newborn, flailing about blindly like Democracts at a confirmation hearing. The newborn eventually rolled off its back and settled on unsteady feet and an adult hopped over, casually pushed him onto his back again, then hopped back to into the corner, probably to snigger with his fellow child-abusing drinking buddies. The newborn recommenced flailing, showing the blind determination of Tucker Carlson trying to get a joke out of Jon Stewart, and had just barely succeeded when another adult (probably the same one - they all look alike) walked up and pushed him over again. I was fascinated by the injustice of it all when my own father told me to hurry up and I had to move on.
Minor7 Your pictures are worthy of National Geographic. It is truly amazing how their life resembles not only our social structure, but that of garden gnomes, only on their own private island. Are there sharks with laser beams in the moat?
back in 1991… Lansing Capital Airport had a large box filled with hampsters…
why? i don’t know… it was probably being sent somewhere…
however, it was a cardboard box…
And hampsters being hampsters… ate a hole through it and ran for freedom! 
the airport then set up a contest for kids: Come in and search the place… find a hampster… you get to keep it! 
I read about it in the USA Today while i was in Basic Training.
