Meet the Camelids – Part Three
In my previous blogs I discussed the members of the camelid
family: camels, vicunas and guanacos.
Two other species belong to this tribe, alpacas and llamas.
Like vicunas and guanacos, alpacas and llamas are
descendents of the Limini branch of the ancient camelids. While vicunas and guanacos are both wild
tribes, the alpacas and llamas have long been domesticated. Alpacas were domesticated nearly seven
thousand years ago, llamas shortly after, both in the Peruvian Andes. Originally it was thought that both alpacas
and llamas were descendents of guanacos, however DNA evidence has shown that
the ancestor of llamas is the guanaco, the ancestor of alpacas is the vicuna.
Llamas are used primarily as pack animals and there are
three types of SouthAmerican llamas in existence today, the wooly type, the
non-wooly type and an intermediate.
While some llamas shed their wool, others have to be shorn and because
their fiber tends not to be consistent, it has less of a commercial use. Frequently their fiber is blended with sheep
wool.
Alpacas are smaller than llamas and are bred for their
fiber. There are two types of alpaca,
the Huacaya and the Suri. The huyaca
or “ wooly “type is the most prominent, while only less than 10 percent is suri
with long, sleek fibers. Processing in
Peru includes sorting the fibers for natural color shades (22) and several
quality grades. Nearly half the yield
is graded as super fine. Each animal will produce 7-10 pounds of fleece per
year.
Alpaca textiles are light-weight woven fabrics, stronger
than sheep woolen fabrics with a silky luster.
Frequently alpaca fibers are combined with manufactured fibers.
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| Cute, eh! |
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| Alpaca scarf |