50 Things to Eat Before You Die: Shark and Guinea Pig

Shark and guinea pig. Should people eat this kind of meat? You decide.

Roasted guinea pig (eaten in Ecuador, Peru's neighbor to the north)

Guinea pigs have a strange, misleading name. First of all, Guinea is a country in Africa, but guinea pigs are not from Africa. They are not pigs, either. The Chinese name 天竺鼠(tianjwushuu/tiānzhúshǔ: literally "Indian Mice") is half-correct: guinea pigs are not pigs, but mouselike creatures. Their teeth show this quite clearly:

Guinea pigs are mouselike animals from Peru, a country in South America.

Peru--CC--BY-SA, Addicted04, Connormah

So why are they called "Guinea pigs?" One explanation: They are called Guinea pigs because (1) They come from South America (Columbus thought he was going to India, so the people in South America are called "Indians") and (2) Guinea pigs make a sound similar to pigs.