India, Sept. 18 -- Photographs of capybaras relaxing next to crocodiles and caimans continue making the rounds on the Internet, and these pictures aren't fabricated in any way. Scientists who have been studying the rodents for years have offered clues about why such encounters can happen, from predator economics and the capybara's defenses to studies on how these animals respond to predation risks.

Biologist Ana Belen Avila and her team offered a detailed look at capybara responses to predators in 2022, publishing their work in the journal Animal Behaviour. The researchers compared capybara groups in Brazil's predator-heavy Pantanal wetlands with Argentina's Ibera wetlands, where large predators had been absent for decades as the ecosyst...