AnimalvsAnimal
A baby Guinea pig🐭

Photo: Rex tremendae majestatis · CC BY-SA 4.0

SpeciesRodentiaCaviidae
Mammals

🐭Guinea pig

Cavia porcellus (Linnaeus, 1758)

The guinea pig, also known as the domestic guinea pig, cavy or domestic cavy, is a species of rodent. It belongs to the genus Cavia, family Caviidae, and its closest wild relatives include the montane guinea pig. Domestic guinea pigs typically weigh between 700 and 1,200 g and measure between 20 and 25 cm in length; most breeds have fur, and they have long front teeth that grow continuously, leading the animals to chew regularly to wear them down. They are social animals, and are skittish in response to noise or danger, evincing a freeze or flight strategy.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Videos
17
Photos
5
Measurements
5
vs you
≈ 1/85th of your weight
Also called
Domesticated Guinea Pig
Conservation status
NENot evaluated

IUCN Red List assessment, 2012.

Key measurements
Body mass
0.73 kg
Body length
not recorded
Shoulder height
not recorded
Top speed
not recorded
Bite force
not recorded
Maximum lifespan
12 years
All measurements ↓
Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Guinea pig

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass
0.73 kg
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: high

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Maximum lifespan
12 years
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: high

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Gestation
68 days
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: high

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Litter size
about 4
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: high

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Volume l
0.7 Laverage
Details ↓

Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.

average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.

Not recorded for Guinea pig yet: body length, shoulder height, top speed, bite force.

Where it sits

Family tree

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›classMammalia
  4. ›orderRodentia
  5. ›familyCaviidae
  6. ›genusCavia
  7. ›speciesCavia porcellus
Full lineage
  1. classMammals · Mammalia
  2. orderRodents · Rodentia
  3. familyCaviidae
  4. genusCavia
All 14 branches ↓
  1. kingdomMetazoa
  2. phylumChordata
  3. subphylumCraniata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. superclassGnathostomata
  6. superclassSarcopterygii
  7. superclassTetrapoda
  8. classMammals · Mammalia
  9. subclassTheria
  10. superorderEuarchontoglires
  11. orderRodents · Rodentia
  12. suborderHystricomorpha
  13. familyCaviidae
  14. genusCavia
More

More about the Guinea pig

Closest relative on this site
🐹 Capybara — last shared an ancestor ≈ 17 million years ago.
Watch them together →
In other languages
家养豚鼠 (zh), kawia domowa (pl), Cavia porcellus (es), tengerimalac (hu), marsvin (sv), كابياء خنزيرية (ar) … and 28 more languages
More photos
A baby Guinea pig"+arya+" Cavia porcellus tikus belanda 01"+arya+" Cavia porcellus tikus belanda 03
All 5 photos in the gallery →

Animals caught on camera

Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.

See all 17 videos →
Tools

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Side by side

Compare every stat with any other animal.

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Who's bigger?

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Scaling lab

How speed, brain and bite scale with body size. This animal isn't in the sample yet.

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Tree of life

See where it sits in the tree of life.

14 branchesOpen →