GARBO

We are rodents (of course we are - we chew things!)

There is THREE kinds of rodents based on our skull structure

SCIUROMORPHS

MYOMORPHS

HYSTRICOMORPHS

Let's concentrate on the HYSTRICOMORPHS shall we, that's are family!

Now one of the HYSTRICOMORPHS family is called the CHINCHILLIDAE

Beginning to sound familiar now does it? - well, it doesn't stop there, we now have to break this family CHINCHILLIDAE down further

Believe it or not the CHINCHILLIDAE family is broken down into SIX species

FOUR are 'VISCACHA'

TWO are 'CHINCHILLA'

To make this page less boring I have enclosed a few pictures!

Here is a picture of one of the 'viscacha' family - known as the 'plains viscacha'

This is the LAGOSTOMU MAXIMUS ( try saying that with a mouthful of raisins )

They live on the plains of the Argentine pampas, have coarse grey hair and black and white stripes across a blunt rat like face - not at all pretty like we furballs!

Now lets forget about the ugly viscacha family and lets go into a little more detail about the cuter ones - the CHINCHILLA!

There is two types of chinchilla

LANIGERA

BREVICAUDATA (or BOLIVIANA)

The chinchilla 'brevicaudata' is the 'short-tailed' one, see this drawing below

Looks more like a guinea pig with a short bushy tail - this one is practically extinct!

Well, let's face it - why buy an expensive one of these when guinea pigs come cheap!

The other is CHINCHILLA LANIGERA

That's us! and here is a picture of a real wild one - bet you haven't got one of these!

Both the lanigera and the brevicaudata chinchillas were brought into the USA for breeding, but the brevicaudata didn't do very well as the lanigera guys so the breeders kicked them out and concentrated on the lanigera chinnie

Phew! I bet you're glad that boring bits over with, well sonny boy, there's no escape for you yet! because if you want to be a good pet owner for your furball you MUST know at least the basic essentials of 'chinnie keeping'

And that's exactly why I'm here, to give you the BASICS and the BASICS ONLY!

THE BASICS

What I mean by 'basic' is that it's the simple basic knowledge, not the 'fancy' breeding stuff and all that, after all, that should be left to the more 'knowledgeable' humans, and maybe you too if you are serious about it all - I also will not include the 'breeding' part here, there is plenty of books going into detail about that side so I will leave that part with you when you're ready for it ! - for good 'chinchilla books' on that subject, go to my friend ZEEBEE's BOOKCHIN page