A Nutria swimming through a Beaver pond on a cold, overcast winter day. In these pictures the Nutria has stopped just next a Beaver lodge.
Wikipedia has this to say about Nutria:
The coypu was first described by Juan Ignacio Molina in 1782 as Mus coypus, a member of the mouse genus. The genus Myocastor, assigned in 1792 by Robert Kerr, is derived from the Greek mys and kastor, or “mouse-beaver”. Geoffroy, independently of Kerr, named the species Myopotamus coypus, and it is occasionally referred to by this name.
Four subspecies are generally recognized:
- M. c. bonariensis: northern Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, southern Brazil
- M. c. coypus: central Chile, Bolivia
- M. c. melanops: Chiloé Island
- M. c. santacruzae: Patagonia
M. c. bonariensis, the subspecies present in the northernmost (subtropical) part of the coypu’s range, is believed to be the type of coypu most commonly introduced to other continents.
