Llama

     The Llama is the largest South-American Camelid which is commonly found in the Andes mountain region of South America. It has been widely used as a meat and pack animal by the Andean cultures since the Pre-Columbian era. Llamas are domestic slender-bodied ungulates that have long legs and necks, short tails, small heads, and large, pointed ears. 

    Llamas can be grouped broadly into two types; the ‘Ccara’ and the ‘Tampuli’. The Ccara has a short to medium length coat with very short fibre on the legs and the head, and tends to be larger than the Tampuli. The Tampuli is more heavily woolled than the Ccara, and its coat extends down the legs and often distinguished by a woolly topknot.

     A full-grown llama is 1.7 to 1.8 m tall at the top of the head, and can weigh between 130 and 200 kg. They are social animals that enjoy being in herds and are believed to be intelligent too. As they are commonly taught tasks which they pick up with only a few repetitions. This beast of burden can also bear weights that are almost equivalent to the half of its own weight for a distance averages 25 to 30 km per day. As Llamas have high thirst tolerance, endurance, and ability to subsist on a wide variety of forage. They graze on grass and, like Cattle, regurgitate their food and chew it as cud. 

     The female Llama gives birth to crias after a gestation period of 11.5 months. And these tend to be born in the morning when the weather is warm. Female crias reach puberty at about 12 months old; while males do not become sexually mature until around three years of age. The llama is available in many sizes and colors, being often white, brown, or piebald. These animals are normally sheared every two years, each yielding about 3 – 3.5 kg of fibre with a hair length that ranges from 8 to 25 cm.

     The Llama is closely related to the Alpaca,the Vicuña and the  Guanaco. And they appear to have been bred from Guanacos during or before the Inca Indian civilization to be used as beasts of burden.