A runner in South Texas got a once-in-a-lifetime surprise while trying to beat the heat during a sunrise run at a popular nature trail: a capybara. Yes, the large rodent native to South America that has earned a place in the annals of internet fame thanks to the many memes showing them seemingly perpetually unbothered by people, other animals, or any of the travails of modern life.
“Your life is amazing! There he go!” Romero said as the capybara slowly meanders along the edge of a thicket of grass near an irrigation canal.
Romero told MySA that he spotted the large rodent during an early-morning run on Wednesday, June 17, on a nature trail he described as being located south of Interstate 2 in Mission, in the Rio Grande Valley. But he declined to be more specific about the location, citing several replies he received from people wanting to capture the creature or even harvest it to make a pair of boots. While some of the comments were clearly jokes, others left Romero concerned for the animal’s welfare. He has since been in contact with a wildlife and exotic animal expert.
Romero estimates the capybara was about 10 feet away from him and seemed unbothered by his presence. It’s not the first time Romero has encountered wildlife while out on the trail, which he frequents several times a week. Previously, he’d seen bobcats, snakes and “all types of birds,” he told MySA on Thursday morning.
“But I’ve never seen something this big,” Romero said, adding that initially he spotted movement in his peripheral vision.
“I stopped moving and I looked at it. And I really looked at it some more, and I’m like, that is a capybara! That is not a nutria. That is not a big dog or a weird creature of some sort. Like, that is a textbook capybara!” Romero said.
For Romero, a lifelong runner, encountering the capybara was a bit of a full-circle moment. In high school, Romero used to participate in caterpillar runs — the exercise where distance runners run in single file and take turns sprinting from the rear of the line to the front. Once at the front of the line, the lead runner typically signals the next sprinter by yelling “go.”
“I got tired of yelling ‘go,’ so I just started yelling out random things. And one of them was ‘capybara’ and that just kind of stuck,” Romero said. So it was really funny to, like, I guess run into an actual capybara (while) doing a similar activity.”