Archaeology: Camelids of South America: Llama and Alpaca

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Camelids of South America: Llama and Alpaca Feb 6th 2012, 07:59 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. Right: Llama (Lama glama), photo by Elliot Brown. Left: 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

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