The llama (Lama glama) and alpaca (Lama pacos) are among the few domesticated ungulates whose most important function has not been that of providing food for the people who control them. The llama has been kept primarily as a beast of burden, whereas the more petite alpaca is most valued as a source of an extraordinarily fine fleece. These South American members of the camel family may share a common biological ancestry from the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), for although they have long been designated as separate species, the closeness of the relationship is reflected in fertile offspring when they crossbreed. An alternative point of view now gaining in popularity is that the alpaca descended from the vicuña (Lama vicugna), since both animals are about the same size (44 to 65 kilograms [kg]) and both have the capacity to regenerate their incisor teeth. The distribution of both the llama and the alpaca has been traditionally centered in the Andean Highlands of Peru and Bolivia, with peripheral populations of the former in Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador. In the past three decades growing interest has increased their population on other continents, especially in North America.

Camelid Meat as Human Food

Both animals have been an important source of food in the part of the central Andes where husbandry has been most intensive. In neither case, however, are they raised primarily for their flesh, which is consumed after their most valued functions diminish with age. However, llamas possibly had a more important meat function in the pre-Pizarro Andes before the introduction of European barnyard creatures. The movement of herds from the highlands to the coast could have been a way both to transport goods and to move protein-on-the hoof to the more densely populated coast, where at the time, meat was much rarer than in the highlands (Cobo 1956). David Browman (1989) suggested that when camelid utilization in the highlands expanded northward, starting around 1000 B.C., and long before the Inca civilization was established, meat production appeared to have been the most important use of these animals. But whether of primary or secondary importance, the protein and fat supplied by this meat have contributed to the health of the animals’ Andean keepers, whose diet consists mainly of starch.