Species Fact Profile: Guanaco (Lama guanicoe)

Guanaco

Lama guanicoe (Müller, 1776)

Range: Southern South America, from Peru to Tierra del Fuego
Habitat: Dry Grassland, Desert, Scrub Forest, up to 5000 Meters Elevation
Diet: Shrubs, Grasses, Lichens, Fungi, Fruit
Social Grouping: Territorial males and fluid herds of females and their young.  Males without females may be solitary, or form bachelor herds.  Larger herds form in more productive habitats
Reproduction: Breed during the southern summer.  Ovulation is stimulated by mating; females ovulate 1-2 days after being bred.  Single offspring born after gestation period of 11.5 months (twins very rare, with only one surviving).  Young (called chulengos) are able to stand and follow their mother shortly after birth.  Weaned by 8 months old, both sexes independent, driven away at about 1 year old; sexually mature at 2-4 years
Lifespan: 20 Years
Conservation Status: IUCN Least Concern, CITES Appendix II

• Stand 90 to 130 centimeters tall at the shoulder and weigh 90-140 kilograms.  Individuals from the northern end of the range tend to be the smallest, those from the south are the largest.  Legs and neck are long and slender
• Coat color varies from tan to reddish-brown (northern populations tend to be lighter in color), fading to white on the underside and legs.  Some have dark markings on the face
• Temperatures in their native range vary wildly.  Guanaco can adapt to rapid changes in temperature by opening or closing "vents" in the fleece on their flanks, allowing air in to cool them off or blocking them shut to keep warm
• To help survive at high altitudes, they have roughly rough times as much hemoglobin (which holds oxygen in the blood) per unit as do humans
• Males compete for females by displaying to one another, chasing, ramming each other, wrestling with their necks, and biting, sometimes leaving serious wounds.  They will also spit on one another, accurate within 2 meters
• Only significant predator of adults are pumas.  Juveniles may be preyed upon by culpeos (coyote-like canines).  They typically flee predators (running up to 55 kilometers per hour), especially pumas, but if confronted, will stand their ground and fight, sometimes cooperatively
• May migrate during periods of food shortage or extreme weather, sometimes gathering in herds of hundreds,  They may also migrate up and down mountainsides in response to weather
• Historically they have been hunted for meat and hides(especially of the young) and have been utilized for their wool.  Farming and shearing for wool is being promoted as a sustainable trade for this species
• Sometimes viewed as competitors for domestic livestock and treated as pests by ranchers.  Much of their original habitat has been lost to agriculture and has been heavily overgrazed, especially by sheep.  Guanaco may get entangled in barbed wire fences.  Domestic animals may also transmit diseases.
• There numbers are holding steady in Argentina and Chile, but they are likely to become extinct in the northern portion of their range (Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru)
• Usually two subspecies (but up to four) recognized - the northern (L. g. cacsilensis) and southern (L. g. guanicoe)
• An introduced population has been established in the Falkland Islands since the 1930's
• The llama is the domesticated form of the guanaco, the largest domestic animal in the pre-Columbian Americas, utilized for meat, wool, and as a beast of burden.  South America's other domesticated camelid, the alpaca, is sometimes considered to be descended from the guanaco, and other times to be descended from its relative, the vicuña