Montane guinea pig Montane guinea pig The montane guinea pig, "Cavia tschudii", a type of rodent, is a guinea pig species from the Andes in South America. The montane guinea pig is the likely ancestor of "Cavia porcellus", the cavy or domestic guinea pig. Peruvian wild guinea pigs were first described by E. T. Bennett in 1835, who termed them "Cavia cutleri". Johann Jakob von Tschudi, in an 1845 publication, used the term "Cavia cutleri" to refer to what are now considered two separate entities - the first, Bennett's "Cavia cutleri", which was later (by Oldfield Thomas in 1917) identified as probably a
Rock cavy and the mediodorsal nucleus, a large nucleus in the thalamus, which may provide the rock cavy with strong emotional learning, visual recognition, and object-reward association memory. This may explain why the animals are found to live in large groups. They can sometimes display homosexual behavior, with males courting males. Some paedophilical behavior has also been displayed, with adult males courting juvenile males. Each group has an alpha or dominant male and several females. The males are territorial, defending rock pile shelters against other adult males. These rock piles are built to impress the females. Once a females chooses a rock