What the Capybara Can Teach Us

The DailyYou’re reading The New Yorker’s daily newsletter, a guide to our top stories, featuring exclusive insights from our writers and editors. Sign up to receive it in your in-box.In today’s newsletter, Gary Shteyngart explains his love for the world’s biggest rodent, and then:The junk science of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.The chaos of Trump’s funding freezeMichael Crichton’s lessons in techCaroline Mimbs NyceNewsletter editorThe capybara is big and brown and buck-toothed; it looks like a giant, dusty, rounder rat. The Internet is positively obsessed. So is the writer Gary Shteyngart, who first fell in love with the animal after encountering one at the Prospect Park Zoo, back in 2001. “Of course, I was taken by his ridiculous shape and size, but I was also projecting my past loneliness onto him, the many years I had spent in the cage of unreciprocated love,” he writes, in a piece for this week’s issue. “Finally, I thought, there was a being with a body as ridiculous as my own, but with a sweetness that made me nostalgic for a past self.”Shteyngart details his expansive love for these mega-rodents, which are native to South America. He travels across three continents to spend time with them: on a farm in Florida, at a café in Japan, and in the suburbs and parks of Argentina and Brazil. Shteyngart and I recently caught up by phone to discuss what makes the capybara so lovable, and what lessons we might learn from these odd creatures. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.How does one get assigned to write six thousand words about capybaras for The New Yorker?I was having lunch with one of my editors, Susan Morrison, and she was asking what is interesting to me these days. And the first thing I said was, “I love this giant rodent. I can’t get enough of it. My kid loves the giant rodent. Whenever I feel stressed out, I take out my Instagram, and there’s the rodent.”Give me the elevator pitch for the capybara, for those who aren’t already capy-pilled.The first thing you need to know is that it is so large—it’s ridiculous. They vary in terms of how big they get, but I would say a hundred and fifty pounds is a very likely outcome of the capy, which is about twenty-five pounds more than I weigh.Gary Shteyngart and friend. Also, it is one of the chillest animals out there because, while it’s a prey animal, there are only a couple of other animals that are going to be able to chase it down to eat it because it’s so big. And it runs really fast. There are all these memes and videos of capybaras just chilling, which, in the upside-down, horrifying world we live in is just—aah. It’s like balm for the heart.Are there capy detractors?Yeah. One thing I wrote about, that necessitated a trip to Argentina, is that the territory where one of the wealthiest suburbs of Buenos Aires is, Nordelta, originally belonged to the capy. But then rich humans came and turned it into this series of gated communities—picture McMansions. After COVID, the capy started getting into fights with their small dogs and eating their manicured grass. So these wealthy landowners and homeowners got really upset, and the capybara became a kind of working-class hero.What can we, as humans, learn from the capybara?The capy does, just like humans, face adversity. Humans are probably its biggest predator. Also, the caiman, which is an alligator-type creature, wants to eat it. So does the jaguar.And, yet, despite all the adversities it suffers, the capybara somehow manages to remain both chill and lovable. It forms symbiotic relationships; for example, some birds will come eat schmutz off its fur. In one zoo, they adopted a cat, and the cat is now a part of the capy family. The capys are completely happy with her. There’s a lot of love between the capy and other animals. They’re just simpatico. We could all learn from that, I think.Read or listen to the story »The Early Days of Trump 2.0Photograph by Angelina Katsanis / Politico / APThe confirmation hearings of R.F.K., Jr.: President Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services faced the Senate Finance Committee today and will appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee tomorrow, amid much uncertainty about his ability to manage the role; questions about his views on vaccines, medication, and wellness; and condemnation from family members who have detailed his history of drug abuse and his callous treatment of animals. “The moment is seismic, both in the arc of Kennedy’s personal story—he has long believed in his destiny for greater things—and in American life,” Clare Malone writes. “For the first time, a skeptic of science could sit at the head of one of the nation’s critical posts, responsible for safeguarding public health.A sudden freeze on funding: After a public outcry and a temporary legal injunction, the White House rescinded a memo demanding a pause in the distribution of potentially trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, which appeared to thr

Jan 30, 2025 - 21:48
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What the Capybara Can Teach Us

In today’s newsletter, Gary Shteyngart explains his love for the world’s biggest rodent, and then:

Capybara portrayed as a social media celebrity.

Caroline Mimbs Nyce
Newsletter editor

The capybara is big and brown and buck-toothed; it looks like a giant, dusty, rounder rat. The Internet is positively obsessed. So is the writer Gary Shteyngart, who first fell in love with the animal after encountering one at the Prospect Park Zoo, back in 2001. “Of course, I was taken by his ridiculous shape and size, but I was also projecting my past loneliness onto him, the many years I had spent in the cage of unreciprocated love,” he writes, in a piece for this week’s issue. “Finally, I thought, there was a being with a body as ridiculous as my own, but with a sweetness that made me nostalgic for a past self.”

Shteyngart details his expansive love for these mega-rodents, which are native to South America. He travels across three continents to spend time with them: on a farm in Florida, at a café in Japan, and in the suburbs and parks of Argentina and Brazil. Shteyngart and I recently caught up by phone to discuss what makes the capybara so lovable, and what lessons we might learn from these odd creatures. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.

How does one get assigned to write six thousand words about capybaras for The New Yorker?

I was having lunch with one of my editors, Susan Morrison, and she was asking what is interesting to me these days. And the first thing I said was, “I love this giant rodent. I can’t get enough of it. My kid loves the giant rodent. Whenever I feel stressed out, I take out my Instagram, and there’s the rodent.”

Give me the elevator pitch for the capybara, for those who aren’t already capy-pilled.

The first thing you need to know is that it is so large—it’s ridiculous. They vary in terms of how big they get, but I would say a hundred and fifty pounds is a very likely outcome of the capy, which is about twenty-five pounds more than I weigh.

A selfie featuring the writer Gary Shteyngart and a capybara

Gary Shteyngart and friend.

Also, it is one of the chillest animals out there because, while it’s a prey animal, there are only a couple of other animals that are going to be able to chase it down to eat it because it’s so big. And it runs really fast. There are all these memes and videos of capybaras just chilling, which, in the upside-down, horrifying world we live in is just—aah. It’s like balm for the heart.

Are there capy detractors?

Yeah. One thing I wrote about, that necessitated a trip to Argentina, is that the territory where one of the wealthiest suburbs of Buenos Aires is, Nordelta, originally belonged to the capy. But then rich humans came and turned it into this series of gated communities—picture McMansions. After COVID, the capy started getting into fights with their small dogs and eating their manicured grass. So these wealthy landowners and homeowners got really upset, and the capybara became a kind of working-class hero.

What can we, as humans, learn from the capybara?

The capy does, just like humans, face adversity. Humans are probably its biggest predator. Also, the caiman, which is an alligator-type creature, wants to eat it. So does the jaguar.

And, yet, despite all the adversities it suffers, the capybara somehow manages to remain both chill and lovable. It forms symbiotic relationships; for example, some birds will come eat schmutz off its fur. In one zoo, they adopted a cat, and the cat is now a part of the capy family. The capys are completely happy with her. There’s a lot of love between the capy and other animals. They’re just simpatico. We could all learn from that, I think.

Read or listen to the story »


The Early Days of Trump 2.0

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr.
Photograph by Angelina Katsanis / Politico / AP
  • The confirmation hearings of R.F.K., Jr.: President Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services faced the Senate Finance Committee today and will appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee tomorrow, amid much uncertainty about his ability to manage the role; questions about his views on vaccines, medication, and wellness; and condemnation from family members who have detailed his history of drug abuse and his callous treatment of animals. “The moment is seismic, both in the arc of Kennedy’s personal story—he has long believed in his destiny for greater things—and in American life,” Clare Malone writes. “For the first time, a skeptic of science could sit at the head of one of the nation’s critical posts, responsible for safeguarding public health.

  • A sudden freeze on funding: After a public outcry and a temporary legal injunction, the White House rescinded a memo demanding a pause in the distribution of potentially trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, which appeared to threaten such public programs as firefighting, special education, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, and much more. (The current status of the funding freeze remains unclear.) Meanwhile, Trump has put a pause on some foreign-aid spending commitments and purged the staff at U.S.A.I.D., effectively stalling its work. Atul Gawande reports on the confusion and calamity caused by these actions.

  • “Fork in the road”: Roughly two million federal employees received an offer by e-mail yesterday—they could stay at their jobs as part of a “reformed federal workforce” and be subject to “enhanced standards of conduct” or take a buyout and leave. To choose the latter, employees needed only to reply with the word “Resign.” Benjamin Wallace-Wells has explored the disruptive efforts to downsize the government—and how, ultimately, these moves are not aligned with the populism of the Republican Party.

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P.S. Looking for your next comfort watch? New Yorker staffers offer their recommendations, including “The Birdcage,” the nineties sitcom “The Nanny,” and tennis matches from summertime Australia, complete with the sound of cockatoos chirping in the background. See more of their suggestions on Instagram or TikTok.

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