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Vicuña - VICUGNA VICUGNA
Endangered
Class: Animals with Milk Glands (Mammalia)
The Name "Vicuña": "Vicuña" comes from the word "wikuña," a word in Quechua - a South American Indian langauge.
Location: South America in the central Andes.
Habitat: Terrestrial. Grasslands and plains in mountainous regions at an altitude of 12,500 to16,500 feet.
Description: The vicuña is more delicate and graceful than the guanaco, and smaller. The long, woolly coat is tawny-brown on the back while the hair on the throat and chest is white and quite long. It is thought to produce the finest wool of all animals. The head is slightly shorter than the guanaco's and the ears are slightly longer. This small camel is only about five feet long, three feet at the shoulder, and weighs under 150 pounds.
Behavior: The behavior of the vicuña is similar to that of the guanaco. Like the latter, it will frequently lick calcareous stones and rocks, which are rich in salt, and it will also drink salt water. Its diet consists mainly of low grasses, which grow in clumps on the ground. It lives in family-based groups made up of a male, and up to fifteen females and their young. Each group has its own territory, the size of which depends on the availability of food.
Reproduction: Mating usually occurs in March and April, and after a gestation period of about eleven months, the female gives birth to a single young, which nurses for about ten months and becomes independent after a year.
Note: Because of its magnificent coat the vicuna has been indiscriminately hunted, with a subsequent decrease in its numbers. It now survives only in areas where it is protected. Its hair has been valued since the time of the Incas and Aztecs. In fact, in the Incan Empire it was against the law for anybody but royalty to wear a vicuna garment.
Go to the Artiodactyla Page to learn more about all the even-toed hoofed animals.
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