a rare and slow-moving South American rodent found only in tropical forests (tropical rainforest) of the western Amazon River basin and adjacent foothills of the Andes Mountains from northwestern Venezuela and Colombia to western Bolivia. It has a chunky body and is large for a rodent, weighing up to 15 kg (33 pounds) and measuring up to 79 cm (31.1 inches) in length, not including the thick, furry tail of up to 20 cm. The pacarana has a relatively large head with small ears and a thick neck. These parts, along with the forelegs, are essentially solid in colour, but the rest of its coarse black or brown fur is broken by two white stripes grading to spots along the back and rows of white spots on the sides. Very little is known about the animal's natural history in the wild: it is terrestrial but is also a good climber, and it is reported to live in burrows under rocks, eat plant materials, and follow either a diurnal or a nocturnal schedule. In captivity the pacarana is docile and can live for 10 years or more. It has a long gestation period of about 7–8 months, and litter size ranges from one to four young.

The pacarana is the only living member of the family Dinomyidae in the suborder Hystricognatha within the order Rodentia (rodent). Containing 22 extinct genera, this family represents a remarkable evolutionary diversification in South America that resulted in some of the largest rodents that ever lived. For example, Telicomys gigantissimus, from the Late Miocene Epoch (11.2 million to 5.3 million years ago) of Argentina, was about the size of a small rhinoceros, and another, of the genus Eumegamys, matched a hippopotamus in size.