llama by ..jac on flickr
I realized after looking thru my posts that I had never written about llamas and their fiber. Although they animals themselves are similar to their camelid cousins, camels and alpacas. They do have some characteristics that make them different than either one of these animals. According to wikipedia “Llamas appear to have originated from the central plains of North America about 40 million years ago. They migrated to South America about 3 million years ago. By the end of the last ice age (10,000–12,000 years ago), camelids were extinct in North America.” This has been shown by the fossil record.
llama courtesy of victorandcarrie on flickr
Now llamas come from South America. They are thought to be descended from wild Guanacos. They were originally used for meat and as pack animals. Early writers thought they were more similar to sheep, but soon people realized the resemblances to camels. The classification for camels and llamas goes something like this:
camel: kingdom- Animalia, phylum- chordata, class- mammalia, order- artiodactyla, family- camelidae, genus- camelus
llama: kingdom- Animalia , phylum- chordata, class- mammalia, order- artiodactyla, family- camelidae, genus- lama
alpaca: kingdom- Animalia, phylum- chordata, class- mammalia, order- artiodactyla, family- camelidae, genus- vicuna
As you can see they are very closely related. I find that people often mix up llamas and alpacas. Here are a few pictures to show the differences.
guanaco courtesty of BillGraf on flickr
4 alpacas and a llama from Seldom Scene Farm
Notice the llama is much larger( around 240-450 pds) than the alpaca and the ear shape is significantly different. Alpacas’s have spear shaped ears while llamas have banana shaped ears. The two species can interbreed they become either Huarizos a cross between a male alpaca and a female llama or Mistis a cross of a female alpaca and a male llama.
huarzo by maviefrancaise on flickr
Llama and cria by rusty on flickr
Information from wikipedia, and lamas of switzerland.
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Very impressive article that will surely hook us and give us an additional learning’s that we will treasure for the rest of our lives. Thanks for feeding our minds with facts about llamas. [ got llamas dot com ]