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Animal profile
Vicugna pacos
The alpaca is a small domesticated camelid kept for fleece rather than as a pack animal, with two main breeds distinguished by crimped or straight fibre. Herds graze high Andean pasture and are shorn roughly once a year.
Alpacas were long assumed to be small llamas, and llamas descend from guanacos. Genetic work in 2001 traced the alpaca instead to the vicuna, the smallest and finest-fleeced wild camelid, and its scientific name was changed to match.
For most of the twentieth century the alpaca was classified as Lama pacos, a descendant of the guanaco. Genetic analysis published in 2001 showed it descends from the vicuña instead, and the name changed to Vicugna pacos.