🇵🇪Peru·National Animal
🦙Vicuña
The wild ancestor of the alpaca, with the world's finest wool.
The vicuña is a small, graceful camelid that lives at 3,000–5,000 metres in the Peruvian Andes. It was nearly hunted to extinction for its wool by the 1960s; community-led conservation and a regulated shearing system have brought the population back from around 6,000 to over 200,000.
Why this animal?
Vicuña fiber was historically reserved for Inca royalty — only the emperor could wear it. The animal appears on Peru's coat of arms alongside a cinchona tree and a cornucopia, representing the country's natural wealth.
Things to know
- ·Vicuña wool is the finest natural fiber in the world — each strand is 12 microns thick (sheep wool is 25–40).
- ·A single vicuña produces only about 500 grams of fleece every two years.
- ·They live in tight family groups and communicate with high-pitched whistles when predators approach.
- ·During the Inca empire, the 'chaccu' — a community vicuña round-up to shear and release them — happened every four years. The practice was revived in the 1990s.
- ·Vicuña wool sweaters can cost over $20,000 — but only legally if the wool was certified shorn from a live, released animal.