Animal · South Africa, Namibia, Kenya
Rock hyrax
Procavia capensis — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The rock hyrax looks like a fat guinea pig, but its closest living relatives are the elephant and the manatee, not any rodent. Its upper front teeth grow like tiny tusks, and it lives in noisy colonies among the boulders.
Picture credit: Bernard DUPONT (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Krigore (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Giles Laurent (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the rock hyrax live?
Home: Rocky hills and cliffs in Africa and the Middle East.
In the wild it lives in these countries: South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: about 50 cm long, with a very short tail. It weighs about 4 kilograms. On the menu: plants.
The story behind it
A rock hyrax is not a rodent. Its upper front teeth keep growing like tiny tusks, and together with elephants and sea cows it sits on an old branch of the mammal family tree. Hyraxes are poor at holding their own body heat, so they spend the first hours of the morning piled together on a warm rock before they go out to feed. The soles of their feet are rubbery pads kept damp by glands, and they grip bare stone like the sole of a climbing shoe. While the group eats, one animal sits high up and watches for eagles and jackals, and a single sharp bark sends everybody into the cracks between the boulders.
Find it on the globe
Rock hyrax is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Is the rock hyrax related to the elephant?
Yes, though only distantly. Hyraxes, elephants and manatees come from the same old branch of the mammal family tree, and the hyrax's upper front teeth grow all its life like miniature tusks.
Why do hyraxes lie in the sun all morning?
A hyrax is not very good at keeping its body warm on its own, so it warms up in the sun or in a huddle of other hyraxes before it goes out to feed. On cold days that can take hours.
Can a hyrax climb smooth rock?
Yes. Its feet have rubbery pads that glands keep slightly damp, and they hold on to bare stone so well that a hyrax can run up steep, polished rock.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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