Alpaca

Physical features

• Alpacas have a slender body, long neck, small head, and long, pointed ears. They are covered in soft fleece, also called fiber.

• There are 22 natural alpaca fiber colors, including varying shades of white, black, brown, and grey. Their fiber is warmer, lighter, and stronger than wool and is the main product humans harvest from alpaca.

• They are usually shorn once per year, depending on climate, with males producing around 8 pounds of fiber and females producing around 5 pounds.

• Males’ incisor and canine teeth, called fighting teeth, will grow longer than females’ and they have no other characteristics to make them sexually dimorphic. Alpacas lack additional front, top teeth but have lower incisors and molars.

• Alpacas weigh 110-190 pounds and are around 3 feet at the withers (the highest part of their back). They are the smallest domesticated camelid species.

• There are two breeds of alpacas: the huacaya (pronounced wah-KI-ah) and suri (SOO-ree). Huacaya are much more common and have a wooly, fluffy appearance, whereas suri have a silkier, straighter fleece texture.

• Alpacas have soft footpads, meaning their hooves cause little damage to or erosion of pastures.

Diet: Herbivore

• Wild – N/A

• Zoo – hay, browse

Reproduction

• A male alpaca is called a macho, and females are hembras. Offspring are called cria until they are 6 months old.

• Alpacas can breed year round. They are “induced ovulators,” meaning that females have no regular heat/estrous cycles, but instead females ovulate after copulation with a male.

• Alpacas are polygamous, meaning males will mate with multiple females.

• Gestation is 242 – 345 days. Crias are precocial, weigh around 17-33 pounds at birth, and are weaned at 6-8 months.

Interpretive Information

• Alpacas are social animals that live in herds that sometimes include other animals like goats, llamas, and sheep. They should not be kept alone and need socialization to thrive.

• Alpacas communicate through body language, vocalizations, and possibly through dung piles.

• The most common vocalization heard is humming, but can also snortling, mothers clucking to crias, grumbling, screeching, and alarm calls.

• Alpacas, like other camelids, will spit at one another when threatened. They rarely intentionally spit at humans.

• There are four South American camelids: the alpaca and the llama, both domesticated, and the vicuña and the guanaco, both wild species that diverged from a common ancestor around 2 million years ago.

• In 2001, alpacas were reclassified from Lama pacos to Vicugna pacos when DNA analysis revealed that their true ancestor is the wild vicuña rather than the guanaco.

• Alpacas were domesticated by Andean people around 6000 years ago.

• Alpacas play an important role in the South American economy. In addition to their fiber, their meat is eaten, their skin is used for rugs, clothing, purses, and toys, and their dung is used as fertilizer and fuel. Their role was and is similar to that of the buffalo of the Great Plains in North America, with the difference being that alpacas are domesticated and buffalo were not.

Updated March 2018