Wild Facts

Photo from http://kareycycling.wordpress.com/2009/04/

Today we are going to look at an animal that originated in North America about 40 million years ago.  That’s right, the llama started there before migrating to South America and Asia.  At least this is the theory but it seems pretty plausible to me. You may be thinking that this doesn’t sound realistic at all since the llama would have to cross the ocean to get to Asia from North America. Luckily they managed to move across before the two continents separated.  It is believed that the llama went extinct in North America during the Ice Age.  I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t have hung around if it got that cold either.

The llama is related to the camel, however, they don’t have the famous camel hump.  I know it is unfortunate but what can you do, right?  At least the llama is able to spit so that is pretty cool.  Have you ever stop to ask yourself what the purpose of them spitting is? They will usually spit in order to settle disputes.  Similarly, this behaviour dictates the dominance among male llamas. The female will also spit but this tells their male counterpart to get outta of her face.  I am glad most human females are a little classier. Usually, the llama will not spit at humans unless they are provoked.  This means that those spitting llamas at the zoo may be a little agitated.

Surprisingly the llama is a noisy mammal that likes to make a wide variety of sounds.  The female llama can often be heard humming to her young, which are called, cria.  I guess she is just singing them a lullaby so they will doze off and give her some alone time. The males will making gurgling noises during mating season and heaven forbid if two males decide to battle it out then they will simply start screaming at each other. One of the most important calls the llama makes is the alarm call.  You see, the male will usually perch itself high above the rest of the herd where they can send a warning call if a predator is approaching.  This technique is a great defense mechanism for the llama.

Well, there is your fact about the llama.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Have a great day.

If my scheduling is going right then this should be February 3, 2010, which is unfortunate because this means I will be spending the entire day flying back to the Yukon.  It is crazy how fast this vacation has gone.  I know as I sit here writing this that I actually haven’t gone on vacation yet but I am pretty certain it will go by fast.  I trust all of you have been enjoying reading about the unusual cross breeds.  Today we are going to discuss an animal that was engineered in 1998.

As you may have guessed the Cama is a cross between a male Camel and a female Llama.  A team of scientists cross bred these two animals with the hope of getting the best of both worlds.  The result was an animal with short ears and a long tails which it got from the camel side.  The llama side of the family contributed the cloven hooves.  If you look at the picture you will notice that the cama does not have the famous hump. The birth of this cama was a pretty impressive feat since it was the first time the Old World’s Camels were successfully bred with a Western Hemisphere Llama since they split up more than 30 million years ago.

Believe it or not it took scientists two years to get the artificial insemination which they were hoping would create an animal with the soft llama fur.  I know what you are thinking!  Llamas have nice fur so why did they need to cross breed them?  Just use the naturally occurring animals.  Well this would work but humans tend to be greedy so they were hoping to create a larger animal with this prized fur.  You see, that way they can make more profit by selling more of this fur.

I am starting to see that humans are making hybrids in order to create more wealth.  Do you agree with people intervening with nature? Do we have the right to replace evolution? Let me know what you think!

Well that is it for me for today.  I have a plane to go and catch!

Rama the Cama at 2 days old!