How Pigs Became Guinea Pigs

Guinea pigs are completely different from the pigs we are used to, and they are not their relatives. These cute animals are included in the order of rodents. By the way, they also have nothing to do with the sea. And if you have a guinea pig, it’s better not to experiment by making it swim: the animal will simply drown. How did guinea pigs become guinea pigs?

Why are guinea pigs called that way?

This name “stuck” to rodents did not immediately. The Spanish colonists who settled in America at first called the animals rabbits. And then – there are several versions of how events developed.

 According to one hypothesis, the animals were “called” pigs due to the fact that the sounds they made resembled grunting.  Second version “blames” the shape of the head of rodents for everything.  The third claimthat the reason lies in the taste of guinea pig meat, which is said to resemble the meat of suckling pigs. By the way, these rodents are still eaten in Peru. Be that as it may, they have long been called “pigs”. As for the prefix “marine”, it exists only in Russian and German. In Brazil, for example, they are known as “Indian Pigs”, while the English-speaking public know them as “Guinean Pigs”. Most likely, the prefix “marine” is a “stump” of the original word “overseas”. Guinea pigs were brought from distant countries on ships, so they called outlandish animals guests from across the sea.