Rio Nutria is a 32-mile-long (51 km)[2] southwestward-flowing stream originating on McKenzie Ridge just west of the Continental Divide in the Cibola National Forest, in McKinley County, New Mexico, United States.

Rio Nutria is archaic sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish (primarily rural Castilian) for "beaver river".

"[4] In his annotated 1900 translation of the diary of Francisco Garcés, Elliott Coues wrote in a footnote: "In proof of this use of nutrias for beavers I can cite a passage in Escalante's Diario.

Mex.,2d ser., i, 1854, p. 426: "Aqui tienen las nutrias hechos con palizades tales tanques, que representan a primera vista un rio mas que mediano - here have the beavers made with sticks such ponds that they look at first sight like a river larger than usual"; the reference being of course to the damming of the stream by these animals.

[3] Fish species found in the Rio Nutrias at the U.S. 285 crossing include Rio Grande chub (Gila pandora), Fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas), Flathead chub (Platygobio gracilis), Longnose dace (Rhinichthys cataractae), and White Sucker (Catostomus commersoni).