Did anyone notice how we didn’t see and llamas in South America? Well guess what, we actually did. But Kerri had to look up the spelling of “vicuna” and this got lost.
There are four surviving relatives of the camel in South America. They are all over the Andes.
The Vicuna is the smallest. It lives only at high altitude. It has the best wool in the world, with a fibre diameter between 11 and 14 micrometers. But they are wild and protected, and their wool is only 1-4cm long. Therefore a sweater of vicuna wool costs $6000. They can only be hunted by the native tribes who capture them by making human chains and cornering them, then sheering the wool and releasing them back into the wild.
The alpaca is the domesticated version of the vicuna. They are much larger and have much longer fur (20-40cm) which makes them much more efficient for meat and wool.
Their meat is much less tough than llama meat.
There are two varieties of alpaca. The suri alpaca has shorter but more delicate wool, while the huaycaya alpaca produces tonnes of wool but it is not as delicate.
The babies are really cute.
And kind of clumsy.
Sometimes very clumsy.
This one is only 25 days old. He is very soft.
The guanaco is endangered.
They live further south than the vicuna.
The llama is the domesticated version of the guanaco.
They are funny looking.
They are the biggest in the group. Llamas can survive up to 5 days without water, but alpacas need water within 2 days or they will die.
They have bigger ears and a more pointed snout than alpaca.
