To Answer Your Question ...
IndigoMuse Wrote:
Essentially, alpacas are a domestic species. They are native to high elevations in the Andes Mountains and are found in Peru, Bolivia and Chile. While a great many alpacas did go feral at the time of the Spanish conquest, they are, and have been, a domestic species for several thousand years.
There are four species of camelid found in South America. The alpaca and llama are domestic. The vicuna and guanaco are wild. The alpaca is believed descended (domesticated) from the vicuna and the llama from the guanaco. DNA studies show a lot of interbreeding between the llama the alpaca. It is an interesting -- and open -- question when this interbreeding occurred. One theory is that the interbreeding occurred primarily during the immediate post-conquest era when a great many llamas and alpacas became feral. Another theory says this interbreeding happened throughout domestication. There are interesting and intriguing claims based on the quality of fiber found in fossil textiles that suggest the fiber quality of alpacas declined at the time of the conquest. I'm not sure I buy these claims -- I can certainly make what I think are good counter-arguments and I'm not convinced the authors have adequately disproved some of the obvious alternate hypothesis. It's an interesting question.
But I begin to digress.
Our original question is what happens to alpacas when it gets hot in their native habitat.
The honest answer is that I don't know. Alpacas are high altitude animals and I'm not sure it gets hot at altitude. I assume the alpaca ranchers and herders take care of the herd if necessary in hot weather, possibly by moving the herd to pastures higher up the mountain. Really, though, I don't know.
I was going to write that vicunas had a double coat and shed their undercoat, but then I remembered that some villages round up the vicunas and shear them every other year. The reason given for only rounding up the vicunas every other year is that the fiber grows slowly and it isn't long enough to have value after only one year. Shedding is typically an annual event, so something doesn't make sense here.
I guess I don't know how vicunas deal with the heat, either.
So, IndigoMuse, to answer your question, I haven't got a clue!
I always wondered what happened to alpacas when it got hot. What do they do in the wild if some kind soul isn't there to hose them down?
Essentially, alpacas are a domestic species. They are native to high elevations in the Andes Mountains and are found in Peru, Bolivia and Chile. While a great many alpacas did go feral at the time of the Spanish conquest, they are, and have been, a domestic species for several thousand years.
There are four species of camelid found in South America. The alpaca and llama are domestic. The vicuna and guanaco are wild. The alpaca is believed descended (domesticated) from the vicuna and the llama from the guanaco. DNA studies show a lot of interbreeding between the llama the alpaca. It is an interesting -- and open -- question when this interbreeding occurred. One theory is that the interbreeding occurred primarily during the immediate post-conquest era when a great many llamas and alpacas became feral. Another theory says this interbreeding happened throughout domestication. There are interesting and intriguing claims based on the quality of fiber found in fossil textiles that suggest the fiber quality of alpacas declined at the time of the conquest. I'm not sure I buy these claims -- I can certainly make what I think are good counter-arguments and I'm not convinced the authors have adequately disproved some of the obvious alternate hypothesis. It's an interesting question.
But I begin to digress.
Our original question is what happens to alpacas when it gets hot in their native habitat.
The honest answer is that I don't know. Alpacas are high altitude animals and I'm not sure it gets hot at altitude. I assume the alpaca ranchers and herders take care of the herd if necessary in hot weather, possibly by moving the herd to pastures higher up the mountain. Really, though, I don't know.
I was going to write that vicunas had a double coat and shed their undercoat, but then I remembered that some villages round up the vicunas and shear them every other year. The reason given for only rounding up the vicunas every other year is that the fiber grows slowly and it isn't long enough to have value after only one year. Shedding is typically an annual event, so something doesn't make sense here.
I guess I don't know how vicunas deal with the heat, either.
So, IndigoMuse, to answer your question, I haven't got a clue!
posted by Upper Alpacas | 7:13 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like a question to throw out to bloglandia. Don't know why I'm so curious about such things. Just one of the strange things that keep me up at night :) Thanks for giving some of the history on alpaca and the like. It really is very interesting.
Tanya
Post a Comment
<< Home