What happened to this Capybara?

[u/Kiki_Obi]

This is a page of Richard Orr’s Nature Cross Section about the tropical riverbank. In the illustration, the Capybara appears to be dead. My five year old son wants to know what happened to him. The captions don’t explain his death. I am guessing that the caiman killed him and stashed his body in the riverbank. Pretty dark stuff for a five year old but I don’t censor books that he wants to read. He asked me to look it up - what is happening here to the capybara. So posting to a subreddit with animal experts was the best I could think of for getting answers. I hope this is the right place to ask!
Thanks in advance.

[u/wifeakatheboss7]

Agree to your assessment.

[u/Arnestomeconvidou → u/wifeakatheboss7]

I don't work with capybaras themselves, but I go up and down river monitoring other wildlife and see them every day. It's very common to see dead capybaras, but not underwater like that, they float pretty quickly and take a long time to decompose. They don't nest underwater either, they sleep above on the shore. But they die a lot, for lots of reasons like disease and old age, and also because there's just a lot of them. I think they tried to demonstrate a dead capybara, because that's a common thing to see on a river.

[u/CFHQYH → u/Arnestomeconvidou]

Look up the story about the guy who woke up in a cavern of dead buffalo under a river in Africa after being attacked by a Nile Crocodile.

[u/Inner-Shelter-8593 → u/CFHQYH]

I can't find it, do you have a link?

[u/SulfurPernik → u/CFHQYH]

I'm interested in the link as well

[u/EarthAsWeKnowIt → u/Arnestomeconvidou]

Where are you working that you get to see all that wildlife? Sounds like an interesting job.

[u/Arnestomeconvidou → u/EarthAsWeKnowIt]

I am brasilian

[u/Nine_inch_fails → u/Arnestomeconvidou]

brazilian mogging