I must confess that I'm not that fond of them anyway - what purpose do they serve exactly?  I know you could realistically use that argument about anyone or anything but come on, a cat shows affection (sometimes!), a dog will be your faithful companion, and you can teach a lot of birds to talk.  Guinea Pigs have their hair on backwards, flinch a lot, and make a stupid noise.  What do you do with a Gp?  Or rather, what do they do?

The ancient Peruvians kept them for their excellent meat, but I suspect that they lived in harder times.

I decided that they may have a secret life that we know nothing about.   At a Wildlife Trust owned park recently I was looking at their section on conservation when inspiration struck.  So, here, for the first time - is the truth about Guinea Pigs.

The Guinea Pig (Lat: Cavia Cutleri) is the most destructive animal on this earth and is distantly related to the fearsome-looking porcupine.  Obviously, their name is a bit of a give-away as to their origins so I won't elaborate further.  In Guinea, they are responsible for the destruction of over 90% of the rainforest, and, due to their cunning ways, have now spread worldwide and so raised the global statistic for rainforest destruction to the around the same terrifying height.  Its not all the illegal logging that's decimating the rainforests, oh no, it's those nasty little piggies.

On reaching maturity, at approximately 6 weeks, the male Guinea Pig (or "boar") will start to build a burrow under a tree, in an attempt to attract a female ("sow").  The approach to the burrow is decorated with snail shells, badger hair, flattened grass, old tin cans, discarded cigarett butts and balls of phelgm - all of which arouse the female.   Several sows may loiter around the entrance to the burrow, shivering at each other in an intimidating manner, until all but one back off.

The happy sow excretes a hormone which drives the boar into a digging frenzy, and the couple then spend a few days bonding by digging deeper under the tree together,  loosening the roots irreperably.  At this stage in its life cycle tree roots provide the staple diet of the Cavies.  The complex carbohydrates in the tough fibres give them ample energy supply for the mating ritual ahead.  Once the roots have been eaten enough to prevent the tree from growing, the Guinea Pigs then eat their way  through the heart of the tree, working their way upwards, inside the trunk.  It is in the very centre of the tree that they create their nest, often hollowing out a branch or two.  The nest is lined with fur, discarded feathers and chewed root and vine fibre. Here in the nest, the boar woos the sow once more with a courship ritual - he stands up on his hind legs, flattens all the fur on his head, inverts his ears and waves his front legs in circular movements, all the time emitting a high-pitched whining.  This cements the relationship and the female will then stand up, signalling that she is ready to consummate the relationship.  Both sexes retract their poisonous claws, vigorously wag their internal tails (a peculiar design fault) and mating takes place immediately afterwards - always loudly and always in a public place in full view of the other (shocked) forest creatures who have a lot more decency and only perform in public when handsomely paid by nature journalists. Twenty days after mating, four to five large, grey eggs are laid in the domed nest.  Both parents incubate.

Upon the first signs of the eggs hatching, the parents abandon the nest, make their way back to the hollow under the tree and die horribly by spontaneous combustion.  A very strange creature really.  The eggs in the meantime hatch simultaneously and the guinlets burst out of the tree trunk, in much the way that the Alien erupts from John Hurt in the film we all know and love.

The guinlets then spend two weeks, working their way up the tree, on the outside of the trunk, stripping the fruit , flowers, bark and all but a few leaves. Their digestive system is such that any seeds which may have germinated under normal circumstances are effectively dissolved by the guinlets gastric juices, rather than passing through their digestive tract and being desposited on the forest floor in their own pack of fertilizer in the normal manner.

Once the guinlets have reached the top of the tree, a ferocious bloody battle takes place as they vie for the chance to gain control of the denuded, dying tree,  Normally only one guinlet hatchling survives the carnage, sometimes none.  On such occasions, the woods bear an uncanny resemblance to those featured in "Rambo I" or "Predator", with body parts strewn far and wide.

Any survivors of the bloodbath then fashion a parachute out of the few remaining leaves - young guinlets have incredibly dextrous paws - which allows the creature to leap safely to the next tree top.  It takes the guinlet approximately ten days to work its way back down the tree, randomly removing leaves, bark and flowers.  Once the guinlet reaches the forest floor, it has reached maturity and the cycle begins again.

In the absence of trees, captive guinea pigs have been known to eat human flesh.  BE AFRAID!