A young male big mara has arrived from the park in Szeged to the zoo in Debrecen: the newcomer already feels at home in the South American social arena.
As they wrote, the young male was apparently accepted as a companion by the female who arrived at the institution the year before last, and they already spend most of their time together.
Native to the central and southern pampas of Argentina, the large mara, also known as the pampas rabbit (Dolichotis patagonum), is a relatively large rodent with a characteristic appearance that resembles both a short-eared rabbit and a small deer or another ungulate.
It is active during the day and spends almost half of its time searching for and eating grasses, leaves, tree bark and fruits that serve as food. It lives in strictly monogamous pairs, which in nature typically raise only one litter of offspring per year.
Due to its hunting and the transformation of its habitat, the species is classified as moderately threatened on the Red List of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), said Sándor Gergely Nagy, the head of the institution.
MTI
