It’s always fun to know about other animals that are closely related to your pets. Many people who have chinchillas aren’t aware of another similar animal that originates from the same part of the world – and that is the degu.
Also known as a “bush tailed rat,” (a little unfair in our humble opinion), the degu’s natural habitat is the lower altitudes of various South American countries, such as Chile, Peru and Bolivia. So, unlike the chinchilla, who lives high in the mountainous regions, degus would live in the foothills and coastal regions.
Degus are a little smaller than the average chinchilla, measuring around 25-30 cms as opposed to a chinnies 40 cms. Now, we all know that sugar isn’t good for a chinchilla, but it can be fatal to a degu as they don’t possess the ability to process sugar at all. In fact, it’s for this very reason that they were imported from their native homeland to Europe and the USA in the 1950s, and were used as lab testing animals for scientists to discover more about diabetes.
After a few years – especially in the 1990s – degus became popular as pets. However, they’ve now fallen out of fashion somewhat, in favor of chinchillas. This video explains a little more about the close relative of your chinnie.
We think that degus are pretty cute – and we’d love to know if anyone keeps them. Why not send in some photos and we can show them off to everyone else in the SPS community. Of course, we’d love to see photos of your chins as well – so get sending them and we can display your beautiful babies to the world.
Till next time – love those chinnies… (and degus)
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The post Degus – Your Chinchilla’s Cousin appeared first on Small Pet Select.
