A Soviet zoologist with a passion for long-extinct mammals set out to reinvigorate the landscape of the Caucasus in the 20th ...

Then consider the nutria, a huge, "semiaquatic" rodent that looks like a cross between a beaver and a sewer rat, but with bright orange incisors. Also know as swamp rats, nutria on average weigh ...

rat-like tail thinly covered in bristly hairs; and noticeable white whiskers that protrude from either side of their nose.

Through the 1930s, Vereshchagin had personally supervised the introduction of an initial community of 213 giant South American rodents – known as coypu, nutria, swamp beavers, swamp rats or ...

It is also referred to as a coypu, coypu rat, nutria rat, or swamp beaver. While nutria may look cuddly from a distance, they usually weigh in at around 11-22 pounds (and are often more than 20 ...

There is no official explanation for how these swamp rascals made it to ... that are constantly searching for nutria. This is not some Hollywood killer rat, but a rodent that likes to be left ...

Imagine a rat-looking creature weighing about 20 pounds and dragging a ... State officials found only three. And then, somehow, the nutria started popping up again. There is no official explanation ...

The 20-pound nutria, native to South America, has somehow managed to establish a population in the Suisun Marsh.

Nutria – or coypu – can spread tapeworm and tuberculosis while burrowing through flood defenses (Picture: Gerard Soury/The Image Bank RF/Getty Images) Disease ridden rat-like creatures with ...