Conchi Merino: "Social media has portrayed the capybara as a cute pet, and it's not."

BarcelonaFor fourteen years, Conchi Merino has risen early to care for 5,435 animals of 170 species—and countless ants!—the inhabitants of the CosmoCaixa Flooded Forest, a space that recreates the habitat of the Amazon rainforest, threatened by agricultural, livestock, and mining operations. The guest of honor is Nut the capybara, a giant rodent that inspires passion among the 45 school groups that visit this jungle every day. It is likely that the capybara rivals Snowflake the Great Kiskadee and Ulysses the orca as one of Catalonia's most iconic animals.

— The Amazon is the lungs of the world, and every year it loses hectares of primary rainforest that never recover. We must become aware that it is a very delicate and very important ecosystem. Here we recreate an area of ​​the flooded forest in Brazil called Santarém. When it rains heavily, the rivers overflow, and the animals spread out and can live everywhere. When the water level drops, they are left in puddles, with hardly any oxygen, feeding on whatever they can find. That's why many of these animals come to the surface and can breathe atmospheric air. We are here at about 28 degrees Celsius and 80% humidity, which allows all these plants and eight species of birds to thrive.

— There are more than 50 species of fish, about 4,500 individuals. They are all river animals; therefore, in the wild they eat seeds, leaves, plants, other fish, birds, and anything else that falls into the river. This is the pacu, which is related to the piranha. This is the catfish. The most common is the GeophagusWe have around 3,000 individuals, because they breed a lot, and they are called that because they eat from the ground.

— It's the largest freshwater fish in the world and lives in the river basins of South America. These arrived from a farm in Peru in 2016, measuring 20 centimeters, and now they are 1.60 meters long and weigh about 100 kilos. They eat animal protein: carp, river octopus, chicken, hake… And occasionally, the big fish eat the small fish: this is an ecosystem. When we introduce smaller fish, we must put them in places where they can hide. Now it will yawn! The natives say that this brings very good luck.

— Sometimes it floats along with the current, and some children think it's fake! It's a dwarf caiman, one of the smallest crocodiles we have, because it's the only one we can keep in the tank. Now it eats a quail every two weeks because it was a bit too big; it doesn't move around much. Look at the manta ray! [A school of manta rays swims by.] You have to be careful with this one when you go in to clean the tank because it's very observant and has two stingers hidden in its tail that, if it gets scared or you step on it, it raises and they're venomous.

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