Talk:Alpaca
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A lot has happened to alpacadom since 1911. There is now a large and fast-growing worldwide breeding program to meet the increased demand for fiber. Alpacas are bred in climates from tropical Florida through the Canadian plains. Australia has an especially active program, where alpacas are preferred to sheep because of the overbuilt wool industry.
For more information on the American industry, see www.aoba.org (the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association website).
[edit] Camels
This page says alpacas are Lama pacos, "derived from the wild guanaco" (Lama guanicoe), yet Camel mentions Lama glama pacos, which I'd credit as llamas, subspecies alpacas, how's that?
[edit] Alpaca Classification Change
In 2001 the alpaca genus classification changed from Lama Pacos to Vicugna Pacos following the presentation of a paper on work by Dr Jane Wheeler et al on alpaca DNA to the Royal Society showing that the alpaca is descended from the vicuña, not the guanaco. The abstract of the paper and access to the full paper Genetic analysis reveals the wild ancestors of the llama and the alpaca is available here at the Royal Society site.
Another reference is Dr Eric Hoffman's book The Complete Alpaca Book, Bonny Doon Press, California, 2003.
The relationship between alpacas and vicuñas was disputed for many years, but Wheeler's DNA work proved it. However many academic sites have not caught up with this, so it is something well known to alpaca breeders who have read Dr Hoffman's book, and to Royal Society members who have access to the current classification data, but not more widely known.
Providing proof of the reclassification at present is difficult. Proof is necessary when so many university sites still show the old classification, so I will continue to research so that when I make the change to the classification on the main page, I will have the necessary ammunition.
- If you're sure of this, you should change it in the article, as well as anywhere else it appears [i.e., in other related articles]...just because a bunch of other sites show incorrect information doesn't mean WP is required to do so. In the interest of reducing confusion, perhaps you could also write up a new section for the article called something like Scientific classification using and expanding upon the information you bring forward above. Cheers, Tomer TALK 01:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
- I second Tomer's statement Phaedrus. Wikipedia is not just allowed to be correct, but OUGHT to be correct! Donama 06:04, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 360,000 dollars?
Really? --Rakista 20:35, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I know 100,000 has been done..... for "stud" males. Young 'uns generally go for $600 I believe. --PopUpPirate 22:03, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] 360,000 dollars?
Yes. The current high seller was Snowmass Invincible who sold for $580,000 last February. What you are thinking of in the $600 range would be gelded males which are typically kept for fiber production and companionship with other animals. I would say the average selling price of a breeding female would be about $25,000.
User:cbutlerjr
[edit] Revert of Genus change 27 Dec 2005
The paper quoted in the History of the Scientific Name section provides convincing evidence that the alpaca belongs to the Vicugna genus, not the Lama. If you want to change this, please provide some reasons, don't just rely on out of date textbooks.
[edit] Prices in US dollars?
Presumably the prices quoted are US dollars and refer to the US breeding industry - perhaps this could be clearer? I imagine the minimum price might get a little lower elsewhere in the world!
Wurzeller 01:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] US Prices
The US closed their alpaca registry to imports in 1999. This appears to have had the effect of boosting prices of local stock, probably because of the lack of cheaper imported competitors. See http://www.alpacas.com/AlpacaLibrary/Ship.aspx for some discussion about it, and for price statistics on the US market. Prices in Australia are certainly substantially lower than this.
User:phaedrus86 12:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Speciation, or the lack thereof?
If these animals (llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, guanacos) can all interbreed and produce fertile offspring, how can they be separate species, let alone genera ?
Juicy 23:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Request to have Alpaca wool article
I think it is important that information about the wool -- and the associated industry go at Alpaca wool. It would be great to draw info from this article for it, because that article would be about a textile and animal product, not about an animal. — Донама 02:31, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Changes to External Links
I removed a link http://www.bonnydoonalpacas.org/ from the External Links section because it looked like it was just advertising an individual breeder's site. Then I discovered the site was actually that of Eric Hoffman, see the link to his book in References. Dr Hoffman is considered to have contributed a great deal to knowledge of alpacas, so warrants inclusion. To make amends I changed the reference to his book to add links to the book web page. I discovered that bonnydoonalpacas and Bonny Doon Press are the same thing. I thought about restoring the link in External Links, but it seems a bit redundant since it is already in References.
Phaedrus86 00:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Remove citation for $2400 per Kg wool
The newspaper article referred to was for sheep's wool, not alpaca! Not very relevant in an article about alpacas unless it is provided for comparison. Here it just seems like a non-sequitur.
Phaedrus86 12:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Remove link to commercial alpaca stud
Wikipedia is not an advertising facility for commercial operations. The external link to Hunter Valley Alpacas has been added and removed a couple of times. Please don't add links to individual alpaca studs.
Phaedrus86 01:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Raising Alpacas
It would be nice to have some more information on the limitations of what an alpaca needs to live, breed, and produce good wool, and some information on alpaca husbandry.
