A zoo in Japan recently mourned the loss of its beloved capybara named Maruo via a heartbreaking tribute.

Maruo, which spent its short existence at the Hitachishi Kamine Zoo in Hitachi, Ibaraki prefecture, reportedly passed away in September after a vicious fight with his older brother, Soranews24 reports.

Twitter user @eenamazu recently shared an image of a sign posted on Maruo’s cage which marked the rodent’s passing as a terrible tragedy.

The sign reads:



“On September 27, our resident capybara ‘Maruo’ passed away. We wrote about this a little in the May edition of our zoo blog, but his relations with his older brother ‘Mochi’ worsened to the point where they became locked in desperate battle with each other. After tending to their wounds we attempted to re-introduce them, but as it resulted in more injury we decided to keep them separate.



Right while we were debating whether we could let them go outside together once the fresh wounds had healed, it transpired that the capybaras had managed to break through the partition in between the enclosures and had fought again. We discovered Maruo dead that morning.”

Other info about Maruo was also posted in the announcement, adding more dramatic details to the animal’s untimely death:



“Nickname: Maruo

Sex: Male

Birthdate: April 4, 2017

Cause of death: Injuries sustained from battle”

According to Eenamazu, he was attending the zoo’s Kemono Friends collaboration event earlier this week when they saw the announcement on the capybara enclosure.

Considering that it has been months since Maruo died, the fact that the sign remains posted reveals how the zoo staff misses their fallen capybara.

The tragic end of Maruo at the hands of his brother has got netizens feeling sorry for the little furry fellow:



“A death worthy of Sakamoto Ryouma,” commented one Twitter user.

“It’s funny, you always think of capybaras as being placid and gentle (the image of them bobbing in bath water all warm and cozy comes to mind) but the males still have that war-like attitude to them. The zoo chose a really informative way to get this news across,” another one chimed in.

“They deliberately broke down the partition so they could keep on fighting…And then finishing off the would-be killer…It’s almost like a yakuza movie, but with capybara,” wrote one.