Certainly. Capybaras are semi-aquatic mammals, and their head as a consequence is positioned significantly higher than their bodies, resulting in a general pose which can only be described as 'regally aloof'.

Cavies on the other hand look like adorable furry idiots with a much less angular — in fact, rotund — outline.

Aside from both being rodents and (apparently) delicious, these are quite different animals.

The head shape is also quite different, as are the ears and eyes. I’m struggling to understand how someone could mix them up.

My implication was "at the resolution of an emoji" - you can clearly tell the difference in real life, but what about when you only have 18x18 pixels to work with?

If you can't tell the difference between a capybara and a guinea pig, you won't be able to tell the difference between a cat and a dog either. The former pair differs more in terms of their silhouette than the latter. 18×18 probably means you won't be able to tell quite a lot of emoji apart, but don't blame these rodents for that.

They also feel extremely different to the touch. Capybaras have really rough coats! They're not soft at all.

You could tell a guinea-pig-sized capybara apart from a guinea pig, or a capybara-sized guinea pig apart from a capybara, blindfolded. Probably anyone who expects guinea pigs to be soft but has never met a capybara would get it right on the first try.

This annoys me so much - squirrel on iPhone offers you an emoji that is clearly a chipmunk.

Chipmunks are squirrels though. 'Squirrel' is the family name for a bunch of these rodents.

> Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae distinguished by their large bushy tail.

(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/squirrel)

I don't care who they send, prairie dogs and squirrels are different and deserve different emojis!

Maybe after Han unification we also need a squirrel unification and leave this distinction to the font which is picked based on the region you're in ...

That being said, I already cannot parse many emoji and would love tooltips what they are supposed to represent in all places.

Yep, that's how I learned you can directly google an emoji and find the emojipedia page for it.

Chipmunks don't have a a large bushy tail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipmunk