Guinea pigs are manmade creatures, they’re bred from South American cavies. I saw someone once frame this exact thought as “Lions aren’t brave, they’re giant predators with powerful muscles, sharp claws and fierce teeth. Guinea pigs are brave, a guinea pig is a 2 pound meat potato with no offensive capabilities that will scream at a human if his lettuce is too wilty.”
And a “meat potato” is almost precisely what they are, they’re initially raised for food.
Tigers are real fucking scary and still humans went into the forest with pointy sticks to hunt them down. Humans doesn’t afraid of anything.
Half the humans on this site are scared of everything.
They can’t even synthesize their own Vitamin C.
Girl, we can’t either 😭😭😭
I know the feeling. salts and peppers a raw lemon
There are more guinea pigs than tigers in the world.
This is where I can share what I learned in my ecology classes! There’s a concept called the ecological pyramid. The base comprises the primary producers, that is, plants which produce biomass with solar energy through photosynthesis. The next trophic level is the primary consumers, that is, herbivores that eat plant biomass. It’s a pyramid shape because the rule of thumb is that only about 10% of the original solar energy makes it up to the next trophic level.
Guinea pigs are primary consumers. Tigers are secondary or tertiary consumers, eating animals which eat plants, or even animals which eat other organisms which eat plants. Only about 1% of the original solar energy in the plants eaten by the animals the tigers ate goes into making new tiger biomass, compared to 10% of the energy from the plants going into making new guinea pig. And since tigers are much, much bigger, there have to be a lot fewer of them.
A tiger’s size gives it a big enough hunting advantage that, well, the world has tigers in it, but necessarily limits the numbers of the tiger population.
The next step is asking what the natural environmental limits on the human population are, but don’t worry, we’ll find out.
In Peru they are a food staple… So not totally useless.
Being delicious food is a competitive advantage; just ask fruit. Domesticated farm animals in general are really nice. I grew up in a time and place of family farms, where animals were given a good life from people who cared, before becoming delicious food.
And Ecuador.
Tastes like fish, it’s weird.
Fish? Thats wild, I wouldn’t have expected that!
Don’t underestimate cuteness as an advantage.
If guinea pigs had no advantages, they wouldn’t have survived.
Domesticated ones only survive because of humans, so they’re advantage is being a good meat sack?
Fear isn’t an advantage
It is if it keeps you hidden from predators and keeps your species alive
From an existence pov, sure. But man that does suck
Good senses and quick scuttly feet and little wormy bodies that fit in tiny holes though.
Guinea pigs were God’s guinea pigs.
