CreatureData

Pacarana

Dinomys branickii Peters, 1873

LCLeast Concernrodents

The pacarana (Dinomys branickii) is a species in the family Dinomyidae, order Rodentia. Recorded adults weigh 10 kg to 15 kg and live up to 11.1 years. Its IUCN Red List status is Least Concern.

Pacarana (Dinomys branickii)
Photo: Benjamin Frable · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

Quick facts about the pacarana

Weight
10 kg – 15 kgsrc for Weight
Length
Not recorded
Lifespan
11.1 yearssrc for Lifespan
Diet
Herbivoresrc for Diet
Longest recorded lifespan
13 years
Main food
Not recorded
Habitat
Not recorded
Gestation
253 dayssrc for Gestation
Young per litter or clutch
1 – 2src for Young per litter or clutch
Active
At night (nocturnal)src for Active
Lifestyle
Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN)src for Conservation status
Countries on record
Not recorded

Where does the pacarana live?

Not recorded

What is the pacarana?

Quoted from WikipediaCC BY-SA 4.0

The pacarana (Dinomys branickii) is a rare and slow-moving hystricognath rodent indigenous to South America. Native Tupi people call it the pacarana (false paca) because it is superficially similar to the paca, a different rodent which is not in the same family. The pacarana has a chunky body and is large for a rodent, weighing up to 15 kg (33 lb) and measuring up to 79 cm (2 ft 7 in) in length, not including the thick, furry tail.

The pacarana is nocturnal and is found only in tropical forests of the western Amazon River basin and adjacent foothills of the Andes Mountains. It ranges from northwestern Venezuela and Colombia to western Bolivia, including the Yungas. It is common in Cotapata National Park in Bolivia.

The pacarana is the sole extant member of the rodent family Dinomyidae in the infraorder Caviomorpha; the paca that it resembles in appearance is in a different Caviomorph family, the Cuniculidae. Initially, the pacarana was regarded as a member of the superfamily Muroidea, that includes the true mice, but that view was abandoned in the face of evidence that suggests that the pacarana is in the family Dinomyidae together with extinct animals such as Phoberomys pattersoni and Josephoartigasia monesi, prehistoric giant rodents that lived in South America several million years ago.

Pacaranas typically are found in family groups of four or five.

From the Wikipedia article “Pacarana” (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pacarana&oldid=1381899929), by Wikipedia contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This block is kept separate from our own text.

Is the pacarana endangered?

The pacarana is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List: it is not currently at risk of extinction.

  1. LCLeast Concern
  2. NTNear Threatened
  3. VUVulnerable
  4. ENEndangered
  5. CRCritically Endangered
  6. EWExtinct in the Wild
  7. EXExtinct

Category via Wikidata (CC0). Find the full assessment on the IUCN Red List. See all Least Concern species.

How is the pacarana classified?

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. phylumChordata
  3. classMammalia
  4. orderRodentia
  5. familyDinomyidae
  6. genusDinomys
  7. SpeciesDinomys branickii Peters, 1873

Synonyms Dinomys branicku

Other names and names in other languages (8)
  • باكاراناArabic
  • PakaranaGerman
  • TinajoSpanish
  • Guagua de colaSpanish
  • Guagua lobaSpanish
  • パカラナJapanese
  • pakarana branickiegoPolish
  • ПакаранаRussian

Catalogue of LifeWikipediaiNaturalistWikidataIUCN Red List

Relatives of the pacarana

Other species in the same family Dinomyidae.

ComparePacarana vs Ferigolomys pacaranaPacarana vs Potamarchus adamiaePacarana vs Potamarchus murinusPacarana vs Scleromys praecursor

Common questions

Answered only where our data holds the answer.

How big is the pacarana?

An adult pacarana weighs 10 kg – 15 kg, according to values recorded on Wikidata.

Is the pacarana endangered?

The pacarana is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, meaning it is not currently at risk of extinction.

How long does the pacarana live?

The pacarana has a recorded lifespan of 11.1 years.

How long is the pacarana pregnant?

The recorded gestation period is 253 days.

What kind of animal is the pacarana?

The pacarana (Dinomys branickii) belongs to the family Dinomyidae in the order Rodentia.

Sources and how to cite this page

Data as of 2026-11-11. How this page is put together.

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APA

CreatureData. (2026). Pacarana (Dinomys branickii). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/pacarana

MLA

“Pacarana (Dinomys branickii).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/pacarana.

BibTeX
@misc{pacarana_2026,
  title = {Pacarana (Dinomys branickii)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/pacarana},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}