There's a guinea pig at the Last Supper in Cusco Cathedral

Look closely at the Last Supper painted in Cusco Cathedral, and the dish in the middle of the table isn't lamb. It's a guinea pig, served flat with its little feet in the air.

The painting comes from the colonial Cusco school, where Andean artists worked in a European style and quietly let their own world in. Guinea pigs had been living alongside people in the Andes for thousands of years by then — domesticated long before llamas arrived in European accounts, kept in kitchens, eaten at feasts, and used in healing rituals. Cuy was the food of celebration. So of course it was on the holy table.

That history still sits in your living room. Guinea pigs were never solitary burrow animals like hamsters; they come from highly social groups and were raised in the warm, busy heart of the home.

Which is why a single guinea pig in a quiet cage is the one setup that really does go against their nature. In Switzerland, keeping them alone isn't permitted at all — they're legally recognised as a social species.

They are a species that evolved with company, and noise, and other guinea pigs answering back.

If yours lives alone, that wheeking at the fridge door isn't just hunger. It's a small herd animal checking whether anyone's out there. 🐹