Chinchilla

About the chinchilla

Chinchilla is a genus of two species — Chinchilla chinchilla and Chinchilla lanigera — of crepuscular rodents native to the Andes Mountains of South America. They belong to the parvorder Caviomorpha and, together with their relatives the viscachas, make up the family Chinchillidae; the chinchilla rat is also a relative. Historically, chinchillas ranged across parts of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, but wild colonies today are known only in Chile. The animals live in colonies called herds, sometimes at elevations as high as 4,270 m (14,000 ft).

What sets chinchillas apart physically is their fur, the densest of any living terrestrial mammal: around 20,000 hairs per square centimeter, with about 50 hairs growing from each follicle (an average closer to 25 hairs per follicle is also cited for fur-trade purposes). The animal's name comes from the Chincha people of the Andes, who historically wore its soft, velvet-like fur and ate its meat. That same fur drove the species toward rarity by the end of the 19th century, as chinchillas were hunted heavily for the pelt trade. Most chinchillas supplying the fur industry today are farm-raised rather than wild-caught, and domestic chinchillas descended from C. lanigera are also commonly kept as pets, sometimes classified as a type of pocket pet.

The two living species differ in some physical details: C. chinchilla has a shorter tail, a thicker neck and shoulders, and shorter ears than C. lanigera. C. chinchilla is now facing extinction, while C. lanigera, though rare, can still be found in the wild; domesticated chinchillas are thought to descend from C. lanigera specifically, and domestic animals tend to have thinner bodies, longer tails, and larger ears than their wild counterparts.

Behavior and diet

In their native habitat, chinchillas live in burrows or crevices among rocks and are agile jumpers, capable of leaping up to 1.8 m (6 ft). Predators include birds of prey, skunks, felines, snakes, and canines, and the animals have a set of defensive tactics to match — including spraying urine and releasing patches of fur if a predator manages to grab hold. In the wild, chinchillas eat plant leaves, fruits, seeds, and small insects.

Socially, chinchillas live in groups that function like colonies but are properly called herds, ranging from as few as 14 members up to 100; herding is thought to support both social interaction and protection from predators. They can breed at any time of year, though breeding season typically runs from May to November, and chinchillas are typically monogamous. Gestation lasts 111 days, unusually long for a rodent, and as a result chinchilla young are born fully furred with their eyes already open. Litters tend to be small, most often just two young.

Kept as pets, chinchillas require extensive exercise and dental care, since their teeth grow continuously throughout life, and because they lack the ability to sweat, they need a temperature-controlled environment. They clean themselves through dust baths, rolling in fine pumice dust a few times a week rather than bathing in water, which can mat and mold their fur. Their dense coat also naturally resists parasites like fleas and reduces loose dander. Highly social by nature, pet chinchillas benefit from frequent interaction with their owners, and their sensitive hearing means they startle easily at loud, unexpected noise.

Range and habitat

Chinchillas once occupied coastal regions, hills, and mountains across Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia. Overexploitation drove a steep decline in these populations — one scientist predicted the species' extinction as early as 1914 — and by 1953 chinchillas were thought extinct in Chile, though later fieldwork found the animal still living in the Antofagasta Region in the late 1900s and early 2000s. The species may now be extinct in Bolivia and Peru; a single specimen found in a restaurant in Cerro de Pasco may represent a surviving native population there, but this is not confirmed. Five years of fieldwork published in 2007 in Jujuy Province, Argentina, failed to turn up a single wild specimen. Today, confirmed wild colonies exist only in Chile.

Conservation status

Both chinchilla species are currently listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, following a severe population decline estimated at 90 percent globally since 2001, driven primarily by hunting. The species' listing history reflects a long slide: it was described as "very rare and believed to be decreasing" as far back as 1965, held an "Indeterminate" listing from 1982 to 1996, then moved to "Vulnerable" (long-tailed species) and "Critically Endangered" (short-tailed species) by 2006, with both species reaching "Critically Endangered" by 2008 before being reclassified as "Endangered" in 2016 due to limited recovery in some areas. It is illegal to hunt wild chinchillas, but continued poaching keeps the species close to extinction in the wild even as farmed and pet populations remain common.