{"id":882945,"date":"2026-06-21T15:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/882945\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T15:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:19:23","slug":"capybara-surprises-runner-on-south-texas-nature-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/882945\/","title":{"rendered":"Capybara surprises runner on South Texas nature trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour life is amazing! There he go!\u201d\u00a0Romero said as the capybara slowly meanders along the edge of a thicket of grass near an irrigation canal.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 But he declined to be more specific about the location, citing several replies he received from people wanting to capture the creature<\/a>\u00a0or even harvest it to make a pair of boots. While some of the comments were clearly jokes, others left Romero concerned for the animal\u2019s welfare. He has since been in contact with a wildlife and exotic animal<\/a> expert.<\/p>\n

Romero estimates the capybara was about 10 feet away from him and seemed unbothered by his presence. It\u2019s not the first time Romero has encountered wildlife<\/a> while out on the trail, which he frequents several times a week. Previously, he\u2019d seen bobcats, snakes and \u201call types of birds,\u201d he told MySA on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019ve never seen something this big,\u201d\u00a0Romero said, adding that initially he spotted movement in his peripheral vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stopped moving and I looked at it. And I really looked at it some more, and I\u2019m 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!\u201d\u00a0Romero said.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0Romero, a lifelong runner, encountering the capybara was a bit of a full-circle moment. In high school, Romero used to participate in caterpillar runs \u2014 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 \u201cgo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got tired of yelling \u2018go,\u2019 so I just started yelling out random things. And one of them was ‘capybara’ and that just kind of stuck,\u201d Romero said. So it was really funny to, like, I guess run into an actual capybara (while) doing a similar activity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A runner in South Texas got a once-in-a-lifetime surprise while trying to beat the heat during a sunrise…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":882946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[344732,338585,37065,159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":["post-882945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-mysaanimals","tag-mysasotx","tag-mysastaff","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116788773987756612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}