Camels

There are two types of alpaca: the Hua­caya and the Suri. The Hua­caya alpaca has fine ruf­f­led hair, while the Suri alpaca has curly straight strands. The alpaca belongs to the family of camels. It has no hump, like all New World camels. Alpa­cas are slightly smal­ler than lla­mas and only weigh up to 80 kilo­grams. The alpaca lives in the South Ame­ri­can Andes. There it is kept as a live­stock because of its wool.

Camels were wide­s­p­read in desert areas of Cen­tral Asia, like Mon­go­lia and Kaz­akhs­tan, as a domesti­ca­ted live­stock. They are now con­s­i­de­red criti­cally end­an­ge­red! They belong to the sub­or­der of the vicu­nas, gua­na­cos, lla­mas, dro­me­da­ries and alpa­cas. Camels, which belong to the family of the Came­li­dae, have two humps; the dro­me­dary, howe­ver, has only one hump. These humps, con­trary to popu­lar belief, are used to store fat, not water. These ani­mals have cal­lous pads on their soles. This allows them to move softly and sil­ently. Camels are 2.30 meters tall and weigh up to 500 kilo­grams. After the giraffe and the hippo, they are the lar­gest hoo­fed ani­mals.

The dro­me­dary belongs to the camel family and is dis­tri­bu­ted throug­hout North Africa, the Horn of Africa and in Sou­thwest Asia as a pet. Even in Aus­tra­lia, dro­me­da­ries were intro­du­ced as farm ani­mals more than a hund­red years ago. There is now a large feral popu­la­tion of about 300,000 ani­mals from the off­spring of relea­sed or runa­way ani­mals.

These wild little camels live at heights of up to 4000 meters and can handle heat and cold wea­ther equally well. The gua­naco ser­ved the locals to carry loads, but also as a sup­p­lier of milk, wool, lea­ther and meat. Gua­na­cos are very fru­gal ani­mals and fle­xi­ble in their fora­ging. They live in family asso­cia­ti­ons with one stal­lion and several mares.