Size and weight : approximately 50cm and 6 to 10 kg
It is twice as big as the muskrat, with a round tail and big orange incisors. It is a very good swimmer but a mediocre diver.
It can adapt itself very well to new life conditions. This explains its proliferation in the Gironde region. A couple of nutria can reproduce 100 pubs in a period of 2 years.
Originally this animal is from South America, where it is bred since 1926. Some of them were able to bring up wild colonies.
We fight it for the same reasons as the muskrat:
- It causes harms to the bank fortifications
- It consumes cultivated plants
- It transmitts leptospirosis, a deadly disease for human beings
As it can not survey to cold winters it is geographically limited. | 
