The capybara is basically a giant guinea pig that can grow to up to 140 pounds on a diet of grass — and its own poop. These social, almost cow-like creatures are native to South America, where they spend their lives moving back and forth between grasslands and water. Capybara voyeur Elizabeth Congdon, a scientist at Bethune-Cookman University, tells The Verge why capybaras are fascinating to study in the wild — and why we shouldn't get one as a pet.

For the largest rodent in the world, the capybara is surprisingly chill. Just ask any of the animals that have ever sat on one. So when we heard that these outsized South American rodents had made their way to Florida, we had mixed feelings. On the one hand, the nutria — another adorable rodent from South America — is seriously damaging the wetlands in the southeastern US.

Capybaras are well adapted to a waterlogged life, they even have little webs between their toes — and some consider these partly aquatic rodents to be enough like fish to be safe to eat during lent. (Oh, and apparently they’re delicious.) That’s not all. They also apparently prefer to mate in water, too.

"Yeah, they do, they eat their own poop."

But on the other hand, these square-headed, klutzy-looking cuties are hard not to love. So far, we don’t know how many there are wandering northern Florida (an unofficial report of 50 capybaras has not been confirmed by scientists). Right now, they’re considered an exotic animal — which means they’re not native, but they’re also not causing problems. Floridians who encounter them shouldn’t try to catch them — as tempting as it may be. They’re wild animals, their teeth don’t stop growing, and they’ve been known to bite people who try to grab them. Instead, take a photo and call Florida’s invasive species hotline: 1-888-IVE-GOT1.

"Still want one as a pet?"

We don’t know whether they’ll stay a benign addition to an ecosystem already teeming with alien species, or whether they’ll become a crop-eating invasive nuisance. But Elizabeth Congdon, a professor and capybara researcher at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida, intends to find out. She made headlines ("Capybaras may be poised to be Florida’s next invasive rodent" and "The capybara, a dog-sized rodent, is among the latest to invade Florida") when she presented her plan to study Florida’s little population of these creatures at the Conference of the Animal Behavior Society in August.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Let’s start with how you started studying capybaras.

For social species, they're fascinating. They just have everything you want. First of all, they're big and they're in a savanna, so they're a whole lot easier to see and find.

The males have a dominance hierarchy and are aggressive with each other because there's an alpha male and a beta, and then subordinate males, but the females cooperate and will even nurse each other's young. I've watched a baby nursing from one female, then go over and nurse from another female. They'll protect each other's young. They cooperate, they help. All individuals in the group, the males, the sub-adults, and even the females will defend their territory.

"They're always near water. They even have webbing between their toes."

Their territory always includes some water. They love water. They're always near water. They even have webbing between their toes and they're really good swimmers, and can even dive. When you look at the picture of them, you see the way their eyes and nostrils and ears are all at the top of their head, so they can be completely submerged under water. Just the very top of their head shows so they can hide from predators in the water really well.

They also alarm call. They'll warn each other that a predator is coming, which raises the question: why would an animal draw attention to itself? That seems counter-intuitive for an animal to do that. They also scent mark.

Are capybaras commonplace in South America?

It depends where you are. In Venezuela, people eat them. They actually spend so much time in the water that, in late 1700s, the Pope declared that they are fish and can be eaten during Lent. In Venezuela, during the Easter season, there's actually a managed harvest of them, but then they're also poached because Venezuela's economy is in a horrible situation.

If you go to Brazil, they are so numerous that they are actually in some areas considered pests because they get into agricultural areas, and eat sugarcane and corn. That's what leads us here, when they have been spotted here in Central Florida. They are non-native, they're exotic, they're not supposed to be here, but they have not yet gotten to the point that we would call them invasive.

"Maybe we can prevent a future problem by studying these things."

Invasive species are ones that have bred to the point where they're causing a negative impact. Be it health, economic, in some way they're causing a negative impact and they're spreading. The capybaras are not to that point, but we want to prevent that from happening.

At this point, we have these spotty sightings here and there but nobody really knows exactly how many are in Florida, exactly where they are. We know that probably a few were escaped from a research facility in North Central Florida around the early '90s and they were not all recaptured. Some juveniles have been spotted, so they're likely breeding.

There are about 50 capybaras in Florida, right?

Well, we don't really know how many there are. There was one sighting by a private individual in 2008 that said that he saw fifty, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was not able to confirm that. These are all still question marks.

Were you surprised by the reaction to your research?

Floored. This thing's like going viral. It's kind of hilarious. What's been really interesting is not only the interest, but the different aspects of interest. I've had to be very, very careful. As you can see, I kind of joke around a lot when I talk and I've had to be very careful because, boy, it's always the misquote that'll get you.

The original talk that I gave, it was actually a kind of a tongue-in-cheek comment I made at the end about not killing them so that I could study them, and I had invasive species biologists calling me and saying, "How could you say that? How could you say to not eradicate invasive species?" I'm like, "I didn't. I didn't say that. They're not invasive and that was a joke in a room full of animal behaviorists who all know me personally."

This kind of research gets ahead of a problem ... Okay, yes, this isn't a problem yet, but maybe we can prevent a future problem by studying these things.

What do you think eats the capybaras in Florida? Are they going to be eaten by the pythons, the crocs, or the Florida panthers?

Because they're in north Central Florida, and not down in the Everglades, their biggest predator here would be the alligators. I do find it interesting that there haven't been a lot of sightings in Southern Florida, because I think, "Well yeah, if they go down there, then the pythons are going to get them." Because they're in the north, alligators might take them. But in Venezuela, I have seen an adult female back down a full size caiman that was going after her baby.

The young, the babies, they're a snack for anything because they're babies, but the thing about capybaras is, they can have up to as many as eight young at a time.

How smart are they?

Oh, they're dumb. They're dumb as a box of rocks. I mean, they're a big rodent, they're not smart.

I think of them kind of like cows, in terms of their personality. Like, "Give me a patch of grass, let me eat, leave me alone, I'm good."

Are they fluffy? Are they cuddly?

"I think of them kind of like cows, in terms of their personality."

No. See, their hair is coarse. Not as coarse as a pig, but kind of in that direction, so they're not cuddly like a dog or anything, so the allure of having them as a pet is really in their oddity.

They can get up to a hundred and thirty, a hundred and forty pounds, and because they're territorial, they're not trying to run away. They'll just poke around the yard, and I suppose it keeps your grass under control, you don't have to mow as much.

I would not say that it would be pleasant to pet them.

Can I get one as a pet in California?

I don't know what the laws are in California, but please don't. Please don't. For one thing, they're going to poop all over your yard, and you're going to have to have a kiddy pool for it, and they're going to pee in that kiddy pool, and it's going to be disgusting, and after a couple years, you're going to be tired of it, but it's still going to be alive, and then what are you going to do with it?

Love it?

I hope so. I just think wild animals are supposed to be wild.

What about Florida is ideal for capybaras?

We're actually within the temperature and rainfall range of what they like; they just didn't happen to be here because they didn't happen to come up the Central American isthmus there, and once the Panama Canal was there, they didn't cross over.

Really, in terms of habitat, we're just right for them, and what we don't have, particularly any more — you know, we don't have the jaguars any more, and we really don't have very many big cats at all.

Do we know yet whether they're a threat to any other local species?

Because they only eat grass, the only thing that they would be really a threat is if they get near agricultural crops, as we've seen in Brazil. They have been seen in Brazil to carry ticks, that can then carry disease. And so one of the things that one of the University of Florida professors — her name is Samantha Wisely — she studies zoonotic diseases, so diseases that are carried by animals and that can be transferred potentially to people. She's going to be looking for ticks that would be carried by the capybaras and potentially spread by the capybaras that could be a threat to people.

I've heard they eat their own poop. Is that true?

Yes, it's called coprophagy, and they do. It's thought to be a mechanism to get all the nutrients; animals can't digest grass very well, so to get all the nutrients out of it, they basically eat it twice. Yeah, they do, they eat their own poop. Still want one as a pet? The whole dream is gone.