The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) or vicuna, very rarely spelled vicugna, which is actually the name of its genus) is one of the two wild South American ca
The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) or vicuna, very rarely spelled vicugna, which is actually the name of its genus) is one of the two wild South American camelids which live in the high alpine areas of the Andes, the other being the guanaco. It is a relative of the llama, and is now believed to be the wild ancestor of domesticated alpacas, which are raised for their coats. Vicuñas produce small amounts of extremely fine wool, which is very expensive because the animal can only be shorn every three years, and has to be caught from the wild. When knitted together, the product of the vicuña's wool is very soft and warm. The Inca valued vicuñas highly for their wool, and it was against the law for anyone but royalty to wear vicuña garments; today the vicuña is the national animal of Peru and appears in the Peruvian coat of arms. Both under the rule of the Inca and today, vicuñas have been protected by law, but they were heavily hunted in the intervening period. At the time they were declared endangered in 1974, only about 6,000 animals were left. Today, the vicuña population has recovered to about 350,000, and although conservation organizations have reduced its level of threat classification, they still call for active conservation programs to protect populations from poaching, habitat loss, and other threats. Until recently, the vicuña was thought to not have been domesticated, and the llama and the alpaca were both regarded as descendants of the closely related guanaco. But recent DNA research has shown the alpaca may well have vicuña parentage. Today, the vicuña is mainly wild, but the local people still perform special rituals with these creatures, including a fertility rite.
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Keywords: alpine, altiplano, america, american, andes, animals, camelids, cordillera, de, high, la, los, mammals, nature, shy, south, vicugna, vicuna, vicuñ, wild, wildlife, wool
