Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇵🇪 Peru

Llamas, alpacas and vicuñas

Three woolly cousins of the camel, all from the Andes

A brown llama and a baby grey llama beside a red lagoon high in the Andes

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Llamas, alpacas and vicuñas are three woolly animals that live high in the mountains of Peru. They are all cousins of the camel, just with no humps. People in the Andes have lived alongside them for thousands of years.

Tell me more

Llamas are the biggest of the three. They are strong, calm and stubborn, and have been used for thousands of years as 'pack animals' - carrying bundles up steep mountain paths. A grown-up llama can carry about 25-30 kilograms all day long, but if you load it with too much, it just sits down until you take some off.

Alpacas are smaller and fluffier, and grown mainly for their wool. Alpaca wool is softer than sheep's wool, warmer for its weight, and comes in more than 20 natural colours, from snow-white to chocolate-brown to black. Many Andean families still weave it into blankets and ponchos by hand.

Vicuñas are the wild cousins - smaller, sandy-coloured, and very fast. Their fleece is one of the finest wools in the world. Vicuñas are not kept as pets or farm animals; they live free on the high plains. Once a year, communities gently round them up, shear a little of their wool, and let them go again.

All three are famous for spitting when they are annoyed. It looks rude, but it's how they say 'back off' to each other (and sometimes to people). Most of the time, they are gentle, curious animals with very long eyelashes and a habit of humming softly to their babies.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01Why do you think llamas became so important to people who live in the mountains?
02What would the world be like if we used animals to carry our shopping instead of cars?
03Three animals - llama, alpaca, vicuña - look similar but have different jobs. Can you think of other family members in nature that look alike but live different lives?

Try this

Classroom activity

Make a class spotter's chart. Draw a llama, an alpaca and a vicuña side by side. Label the differences: size, ears, fluffiness, wild or tame. Then test each other: hide the labels and see who can name each one correctly.

Llamas, alpacas and vicuñas

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Discussion prompts

Classroom activity

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