The only good part about winter are these capybaras in a yuzu bath

This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.

Baths are an extremely overrated form of self-care: they’re often too warm, incredibly filthy, and loaded with foul bacteria.

Meanwhile, baths for nature’s most underrated animal, the capybara, provide plenty of soothing both for the animal and for the sad human voyeur.

I’m a particular fan of this video of capybaras soaking in a yuzu bath which went viral this week, and for which we should all be grateful.

Every year for the winter solstice, zookeepers at multiple zoos across Japan soak capybaras in yuzu baths. The tradition started at Izu Shaboten Zoo in 1996 and has since taken off, though the practice has been used as a way to ward off illness for centuries. Read more…

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