People Different From Us

Melanie Typaldos, 57, and her husband, Richard Loveman, 54, in Buda, Texas, are supposedly part of a growing trend of people keeping pet capybaras (giant, semi-aquatic guinea pigs that are the world’s largest rodents, at more than 100 pounds). “Gary” sometimes lounges on the couple’s bed and frolics in the above-ground pool they installed for him. Though Melanie and Richard keep other, more traditional, animals in their home (they told London’s Daily Mail in June), Gary is, of course, the only one as large as a human but with the distinctive body and head of a rat.