Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Artiodactyla > Camelidae > Vicugna > Vicugna pacos

Vicugna pacos (alpaca)

Synonyms: Auchenia paca; Camelus pacos (homotypic); Lama pacos

Wikipedia Abstract

An alpaca (Vicugna pacos) is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance. There are two breeds of alpaca; the Suri alpaca and the Huacaya alpaca. Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru, northern Bolivia, Ecuador, and northern Chile at an altitude of 3,500 m (11,500 ft) to 5,000 m (16,000 ft) above sea level, throughout the year. Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, they were not bred to be beasts of burden, but were bred specifically for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, similar to wool. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks, coats
View Wikipedia Record: Vicugna pacos

Infraspecies

Vicugna pacos huacaya
Vicugna pacos pacos

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  136.687 lbs (62.00 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  15.895 lbs (7.21 kg)
Diet [2]  Herbivore
Female Maturity [1]  1 year 2 months
Male Maturity [1]  1 year 4 months
Gestation [1]  11 months 15 days
Litter Size [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [1]  26 years
Weaning [1]  7 months 3 days

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Madidi National Park II 3194501 Bolivia  
Reserva Nacional de Fauna Ulla Ulla National Fauna Reserve 559837 Bolivia  
Reserva Nacional Lauca National Park II 349990 Chile  

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Cervus elaphus (wapiti or elk)1
Dama dama (fallow deer)1
Hippocamelus antisensis (Peruvian guemal)1
Lama glama (llama)10

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Echinococcus granulosus (hydatid worm)[5]
Mazamastrongylus peruvianus <Unverified Name>[5]
Microthoracius minor[6]

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 3Botanical composition of the diets of alpaca (Lama pacos) and llama (Lama glama) in the Andean rangelands of Chile, Birgit Wackwitz, G. Castellaro, H. J. Schwartz, A. Raggi, Deutscher Tropentag 1999 in Berlin, Session: Sustainable Technology Development in Animal Agriculture
♦ 4BOTANICAL COMPOSITION OF ALPACA (Lama pacos Linn.) DIET IN A CENTRAL MEDITERRANEAN RANGE OF CHILE, G. Castellaro G., F. Squella N., F. León C., and A. Raggi S., CHILEAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 68:136-145 (APRIL-JUNE 2008)
♦ 5Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0