Alpaca

• 1. Introduction

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  The alpaca, a domesticated camelid from South America, has changed hands for as little as US$50 and as much as US$675,000. The bargain price belonged to a castrated male, known as a gelding. The top price was the highest paid for an alpaca anywhere in the world. Both figures come from North America. A typical adult stands only 81 to 99 cm at the shoulder and weighs between 48 and 90 kg. It has a reputation for spitting. So why did buyers pay a fortune for it? Where did the animal come from, when scientists once could not agree on its parents? And how did people in the Andes come to see it as a gift from a goddess?

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• 2. Tangled Ancestry

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  In 2001, a paper on alpaca DNA by Miranda Kadwell and colleagues was presented to the Royal Society, and the animal's scientific name changed. The genus moved from Lama pacos to Vicugna pacos, because the evidence showed descent from the vicuña and not from the guanaco.

  For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, naturalists had assumed the opposite. They treated the alpaca as a descendant of the llama. That guess overlooked how closely the alpaca resembles the vicuña in size, fleece and teeth. Sorting out the family was hard because all four South American camelids can interbreed, and their offspring are fertile.

  The mummies of the Moquegua valley in southern Peru add another clue. They are 900 to 1000 years old, and they include two breeds of alpaca. Analysis of their bones and teeth pointed to the vicuña. Other researchers, studying behavior and body shape, suggested the guanaco, or even a hybrid of both.

  Genetics first deepened the puzzle. Mitochondrial DNA, which passes only from mother to offspring, showed most alpacas carrying guanaco material, and many carried vicuña material as well. Microsatellite data told a different story, placing alpaca DNA much nearer to the vicuña. The likely explanation is modern husbandry. Many domestic alpacas come from male alpacas bred to female llamas, and llamas mostly carry guanaco DNA.

  The larger family is far older. Camelids first appeared in the Americas 40 to 45 million years ago, in the Eocene, descended from an ancestor called Protylopus. Its descendants split into two tribes, the Camelini and the Lamini, which migrated to Asia and to South America respectively. Camelids died out in North America about 3 million years ago, yet they flourished in the south. Between 2 and 5 million years ago, in the Pliocene, the genus Hemiauchenia produced Palaeolama and Lama. In South America, Lama then divided again into Lama and Vicugna.

  The llama is the alpaca's most familiar cousin, and people often mistake one for the other. Llamas are taller. They have long served as guards for livestock, in place of dogs, and as pack animals, thanks to their nimble climbing on mountain slopes. Alpacas were bred mainly for their wool. The usual account holds that people bred llamas and alpacas from the guanaco and the vicuña at least 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Bones of wild vicuña and guanaco around 12,000 years old have turned up across Peru. Long after domestication, the Moche people of northern Peru were still putting alpaca images into their art.

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• 3. Two Fleeces

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  About nine in ten alpacas are Huacaya, and the remaining tenth are Suri. The two breeds are separated by their fiber, not by any formal scientific scheme.

  Huacaya fleece is thick, wavy and crimped, and it grows in bundles much like sheep's wool. The breed is thought to have arisen in Peru after the Spanish arrived. Pushed into the high Andes, the animals with the warmest fleeces survived best. Suri fiber grows in straight locks and is comparable to the mohair of Turkish Angora goats. Suri alpacas are thought to have been more common before Columbus, because they could be kept at lower altitudes where heavy fleece was unnecessary.

  The fleece itself is soft, and it resists both water and flame. People use it for blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves and a wide range of textiles. In South America it also becomes ponchos. Elsewhere it goes into socks, coats and bedding. Peru classifies more than 52 natural colors. Australia recognizes 12, and the United States 16.

  Shearing happens once a year, in spring, and yields roughly 5 to 10 lb per animal. An adult might give 50 to 90 oz of first-quality fiber, plus 50 to 100 oz of second and third grades. Quality follows the crimp. The more small folds the fiber has, the better it is graded. Because the animal is simply shorn, nothing is slaughtered, and the fiber grows back every year. In Australia, buyers also grade by the thickness of individual hairs and by how much plant debris is mixed into the shearings.

  The word itself has a second life in the cloth trade. There, "alpaca" mainly means the hair of Peruvian alpacas. More broadly it names a style of fabric first made from that hair, though the same style can be woven from mohair, Icelandic sheep wool or fine wool from other sheep. Traders keep alpaca distinct from the several types of mohair and luster.

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• 4. Spit and Hum

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  A male alpaca defending his territory turns sideways, pulls his ears back and stands in a posture called broadside. Alpacas live in family groups, with a territorial alpha male, several females and their young. Body language keeps order, and each animal knows who dominates its group.

  When an intruder appears, the herd hears a sharp, noisy inhalation that sounds like a high-pitched bray. The group may strike smaller predators with their front feet, spit and kick. Their hostility toward coyotes, foxes and dogs is exactly why alpacas are sometimes used as guards for sheep. Among themselves, alpha males may pin the head and neck of a weaker challenger to prove their strength.

  Not every alpaca spits, but all can. The word is a polite one. Sometimes the shot is only air and a little saliva. More often the animal brings up acidic, grassy green stomach contents and fires them at a chosen target, up to ten feet away. Most give a warning first, blowing air out, lifting the head and pinning the ears. Females spit at males they reject, usually when they believe they are already pregnant. The reflex is tied to rising progesterone around ovulation. Both sexes also spit to guard food. Spitting can leave a condition called sour mouth, marked by a loose-hanging lower lip and a gaping mouth.

  Stress shows in other ways, too. Humming, a wrinkle under the eye, drooling, rapid breathing and foot stomping can all come before a spit.

  Humming is the alpaca's most common sound. A mother and her newborn hum to each other constantly. An alpaca separated from the herd hums in distress, and it may also hum when curious, happy or cautious. Snorting tells another alpaca it is too close. Grumbling, which sounds like gurgling, is a warning. Clucking resembles a hen. A mother clucks when she worries about her cria, and a male clucks to be friendly. Screams are deafening, and an alpaca lets them out when mishandled or attacked. Males in a fight for dominance screech like a bird, presumably to frighten the rival. A female screeching sounds more like an angry growl.

  Despite all this, alpacas respond well to training, usually for food rewards. They tolerate petting, especially if the head and neck are avoided. Herding is easy if the handler approaches slowly and quietly. Alpacas and llamas have also begun appearing as certified therapy animals in nursing homes and hospitals across the United States. The Mayo Clinic says animal-assisted therapy can reduce pain, depression, anxiety and fatigue.

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• 5. Birth and Appetite

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  A pregnant alpaca carries her single offspring for an average of 11.5 months. Twins are rare, about one in every 1,000 deliveries. A newborn cria weighs 15 to 19 pounds and stands within 30 to 90 minutes. Females are induced ovulators, so mating itself triggers egg release, and they usually conceive after one breeding. Alpacas can breed in any season but find winter hardest, and most breeding happens in autumn or late spring. A male is usually ready between two and three years old. Breeders are advised to wait until a female is at least 18 months old. About two weeks after giving birth she can be bred again. Weaning by humans comes near six months and 60 pounds, though many breeders let the mother decide. An alpaca usually lives 15 to 20 years, and the longest on record reached 28.

  The animal's stomach has three chambers, as in other camelids. Alpacas are not ruminants in the strict sense, because camelid anatomy differs in many ways. They chew in a figure-eight motion. The first two chambers, called C1 and C2, ferment food without oxygen. Absorption begins in the first part of the third chamber, and its end, called C3, secretes acid. That is where ulcers are likely when the animal is stressed.

  An alpaca eats roughly 1.5% of its body weight a day, so a keeper might provide two 60 lb bales of grass hay per month. Spring pasture holds about 20% protein, while summer grass falls to 6%, and winter calls for extra energy to make body heat. Only lower front teeth grip the grass, so it is cut rather than uprooted.

  Many common plants are poisonous to alpacas, unlike to sheep and goats, which clear weedy land. The list includes azaleas, oak acorns, ferns such as bracken, buttercups, irises and the leaves of orange trees.

  Waste follows a strict routine. Alpacas keep a communal dung pile away from where they graze, which may limit the spread of internal parasites. Females line up and go together, one starting and the others following. Because of this habit, some alpacas have even been house-trained.

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• 6. Conquest and Collapse

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  In 1532, Spanish conquistadors invaded the Andes, and about 98% of the alpacas there were destroyed. Diseases the Spanish brought with them were fatal to the animals as well. The survivors were forced higher into the mountains, and they stayed there permanently.

  The animals were almost wiped out entirely. European observers rediscovered them sometime in the 19th century. Once their uses were understood, alpacas became important to societies during the Industrial Revolution.

  Today Peru is home to more than half of the world's alpacas. In their native range they graze at altitudes of roughly 3500 to 5000 m, among flamingos, condors, spectacled bears, mountain lions and coyotes. The traditional range covers southern Peru, western Bolivia, Ecuador and northern Chile. Because the animal copes with so many environments, farms and ranches now raise thousands of newborns each year in North America, Europe and Australia.

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• 7. The Investment You Can Hug

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  Television commercials from the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association sold alpacas as "the investment you can hug." Between the animal's arrival in North America in 1984 and the early 21st century, prices climbed in a speculative bubble. The cost depended on breeding history, sex and color.

  The trouble was the product. The main output is fiber, and that earns little for each animal. In 2006, researchers warned that breeding stock prices were mostly speculative. They calculated that a herd run for fiber would only be viable if animals cost hundreds of dollars, not tens of thousands.

  The market had almost no buyers beyond other breeders. Owners made money by breeding animals and selling them to newcomers, a classic warning sign of a livestock bubble.

  The bubble burst in 2007. Breeding stock lost thousands of dollars in value each year afterward. Many farmers could not sell their animals at any price, and some could not even give them away. In the Andes, meanwhile, the alpaca had never been treated as a commodity first.

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• 8. The Gift of Pachamama

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  Lima alone yielded more than 3,400 conopas when missionaries tried to convert the Andean people to Catholicism. Conopas are small figures of alpacas, and they were central to older ritual life. Their design follows the Suri alpaca, with long locks along the sides and bangs falling over the eyes. A hollow in the back was filled with coca leaves and fat from alpacas and llamas, an offering meant to bring fertility and luck.

  Before colonization, the alpaca appeared in rituals and religious practice. Andean communities relied on it for food, clothing fiber and art, and they regarded it as a gift from Pachamama.

  A legend explains where alpacas came from. A goddess fell in love with a man. Her father agreed to the match only if the man tended her herd of alpacas and carried a small animal with him for life. When the goddess entered our world, the alpacas followed her. All went well until the man set the small animal down. The goddess fled for home with her herd, and the man tried to stop them. He could not hold her back, but he kept a few alpacas from returning.

  According to the legend, those left-behind alpacas stand today in the swampy lands of the Andes. They are waiting for the end of the world, when they can go back to their goddess.

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