coypu

plural coypus

1. A large, crepuscular, semiaquatic rodent (Myocastor coypus) resembling a large rat, having bright orange-yellow incisors, native to South America and introduced to Europe, Asia and North America, valued for its fur in eastern Europe and central Asia and considered a pest elsewhere.

   1 more example

   We are walking south-west, down a gently increasing slope, with the old farm buildings of the tiny hamlet of Villemiers [in the department of Charente] visible on the other side of the valley a kilometre away. The Transon [a tributary of the river Charente] meanders in the bottom of the valley below, a lazy trickle of a stream with small muddy pools at intervals, home to numerous coypu, a South American rodent that escaped from fur-farms long ago and has found a home-from-home in the many rivers and lakes of the Charente. They are semi-aquatic, resembling beavers in all but their long, rat-like tails. They can be something of a nuisance, as they are great burrowers, creating huge holes in the banks just on the waterline, which does little harm in a stream, but can be disastrous in a man-made lake, since their burrows can puncture the dam.

   2015, Dave Goulson, A Buzz in the Meadow: The Natural History of a French Farm, Picador, →ISBN, page 14

   Synonyms: nutria