What is the maximal age a Vicuña reaches?
An adult Vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) usually gets as old as 24.75 years.
Vicuñas are around 345 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 6.09 kg (13.42 lbs) and measure 8.3 cm (0′ 4″). As a member of the Camelidae family (genus: Vicugna), a Vicuña caries out around 1 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 1 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 1.58 meter (5′ 3″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) or vicuna (both , very rarely spelled vicugna, which is actually the name of its genus) is one of the two wild South American camelids which live in the high alpine areas of the Andes, the other being the guanaco. Vicuñas are relatives of the llama, and are now believed to be the wild ancestor of domesticated alpacas, which are raised for their coats. Vicuñas produce small amounts of extremely fine wool, which is very expensive because the animal can only be shorn every three years and has to be caught from the wild. When knitted together, the product of the vicuña’s wool is very soft and warm. The Inca valued vicuñas highly for their wool, and it was against the law for anyone but royalty to wear vicuña garments; today, the vicuña is the national animal of Peru and appears in the Peruvian coat of arms.Both under the rule of the Inca and today, vicuñas have been protected by law, but they were heavily hunted in the intervening period. At the time they were declared endangered in 1974, only about 6,000 animals were left. Today, the vicuña population has recovered to about 350,000, and although conservation organizations have reduced its level of threat classification, they still call for active conservation programs to protect populations from poaching, habitat loss, and other threats.Previously the vicuña was thought not to have been domesticated, and the llama and the alpaca were both regarded as descendants of the closely related guanaco. But DNA research published in 2001 has shown the alpaca may well have vicuña parentage. Today, the vicuña is mainly wild, but the local people still perform special rituals with these creatures, including a fertility rite.
Animals of the same family as a Vicuña
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Camelidae):
- Llama becoming 14.17 years old
- Bactrian camel becoming 40 years old
- Alpaca with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Guanaco becoming 28.25 years old
- Dromedary becoming 40 years old
Animals that reach the same age as Vicuña
With an average age of 24.75 years, Vicuña are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Hector’s dolphin usually reaching 20 years
- Aardvark usually reaching 24 years
- Sika deer usually reaching 25.42 years
- De Brazza’s monkey usually reaching 26.25 years
- Goitered gazelle usually reaching 20 years
- Grévy’s zebra usually reaching 26 years
- Tamaraw usually reaching 28 years
- Springbok usually reaching 20 years
- Roan antelope usually reaching 20 years
- Cotton-top tamarin usually reaching 23.08 years
Animals with the same number of babies Vicuña
The same number of babies at once (1) are born by:
- Livingstone’s fruit bat
- Sharpe’s grysbok
- Hippopotamus
- Coquerel’s giant mouse lemur
- Insular single leaf bat
- Gray dorcopsis
- Little free-tailed bat
- California mouse
- Egyptian free-tailed bat
- Little bent-wing bat
Weighting as much as Vicuña
A fully grown Vicuña reaches around 47.5 kg (104.72 lbs). So do these animals:
- Northern fur seal weighting 55.58 kilos (122.53 lbs) on average
- Capybara weighting 48.14 kilos (106.13 lbs) on average
- Brown hyena weighting 42.98 kilos (94.75 lbs) on average
- Urial weighting 51.8 kilos (114.2 lbs) on average
- Visayan spotted deer weighting 45.8 kilos (100.97 lbs) on average
- Leopard weighting 52.4 kilos (115.52 lbs) on average
- Spinner dolphin weighting 50.5 kilos (111.33 lbs) on average
- Red kangaroo weighting 38.98 kilos (85.94 lbs) on average
- Capybara weighting 47.5 kilos (104.72 lbs) on average
- Markhor weighting 53.95 kilos (118.94 lbs) on average
Animals as big as a Vicuña
Those animals grow as big as a Vicuña:
- Hirola with 1.6 meter (5′ 3″)
- Llama with 1.66 meter (5′ 6″)
- Alpaca with 1.72 meter (5′ 8″)
- Markhor with 1.59 meter (5′ 3″)
- Mule deer with 1.52 meter (5′ 0″)
- Red river hog with 1.37 meter (4′ 6″)
- Javan rusa with 1.63 meter (5′ 5″)
- Ringed seal with 1.29 meter (4′ 3″)
- Anoa with 1.73 meter (5′ 9″)
- Gemsbok with 1.62 meter (5′ 4″)