I don't know about you, but I've always been confused about llamas and alpacas. In zoos I've visited, they looked pretty similar to me, and never having done much study on them, well, all I knew was they were domesticated in South America, somewhere high in the Andes.
Left: Llama (Lama glama), photo by Elliot Brown. Right: Alpaca (Lama pacos), photo by Teo Romera
It turns out they are pretty similar. The wild forms of the species evolved from the same creature some two million years ago. Both were domesticated in the same time and place, and, like their distant camel cousins, both were and are used for meat, and their dung was and is used for fuel. But each came from a different wild camel form and each has a distinct and very useful quality that made both of them vital for the survival of the cold climate Andean herders who turned them into domesticates.
- Read the history of Llamas and Alpacas
- Or their cousins, Bactrians and Dromedaries
- More Animal Domestication Stories
Comments
The photos are not captioned properly. The animal in the left photo is a llama; the alpaca is on the right.
The only thing I know about the two is: if you want one for a pet, Alpacas run 2 or 3 times what you would pay if you merely want a Llama. I knew someone who had one of each in his private little zoo. For myself, I’d prefer the Alpaca; they have a prettier face. Whether they spit at you, as do the Llamas and Camels, I don’t know. But I can’t imagine something
as beautiful as an Alpaca spitting on you.
Hah! You are right–I am always getting left and right mixed up… think of it as “stage left”.
I’d always assumed that alpacas were some sort of dwarf llama. I stand corrected. I love that the llama’s scientific name is “lama glama” — sounds like such a diva.
on the formal names for the two types of camelid modern research based on DNA analysis has re-classified them Llama: Lama Glama and Alpaca: Vicuna Pacos
The Llama is descended from the wild Guanaco whereas the Alpaca is descended from the wild Vicuna – in both cases the wild camelid ancestor is a bit smaller than the descendant line and also consistent in their fleece colours whereas modern Llamas and Alpacas are bred in a great range of colours ranging from White though fawns greys and browns to balck
Thanks! I saw the reclassification mentioned in one of the newest articles, but wasn’t clear whether it had been widely accepted.