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Animal Size

Vicuña size: How big do they get?

How big does a Vicuña get? Here is an overview over the average adult age:

A grown Vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) reaches an average size of 1.58 meter (5′ 3″).

When born, they have an average size of 0 cm (0′ 0″). During their lifetime of about 24.75 years, they grow from 6.09 kg (13.42 lbs) to 47.5 kg (104.72 lbs). Talking about reproduction, Vicuñas have 1 babies about 1 times per year. The Vicuña (genus: Vicugna) is a member of the family Camelidae.

As a reference: Humans reach an average body size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) while carrying 62 kg (137 lbs). A human woman is pregnant for 280 days (40 weeks) and on average become 75 years old.

The average adult size of a Vicuña is (5' 3

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

We found other animals of the Camelidae family:

  • Guanaco with a size of 1.47 meter (4′ 11″)
  • Bactrian camel with 1 babies per litter
  • Llama with a size of 1.66 meter (5′ 6″)
  • Dromedary with 1 babies per litter
  • Alpaca with a size of 1.72 meter (5′ 8″)

Animals with the same size as a Vicuña

Not that size really matters, but it makes things comparable. So here are a couple of animals that are as big as Vicuña:

Animals with the same litter size as a Vicuña

Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (1) as a Vicuña:

Animals with the same life expectancy as a Vicuña

Completely different animals, but becoming as old as a Vicuña:

Animals with the same weight as a Vicuña

As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Vicugna vicugna: