Guanacos, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
© Floris van Breugel/NPL/Minden Pictures
Llama Day - Attitude and altitude
Prick up your ears and crane your neck—it's National Llama Day. Part of a family that includes camels, alpacas, and guanacos, llamas have long been domesticated in South America because of their hardiness and ability to thrive on the bleak vegetation in the mountains and plateaus of the Andes. At up to 6 feet tall and weighing up to 400 pounds, they were used primarily as pack animals for about 6,500 years. They were also bred as a source of food, hides, tallow for candles, dung for fuel, and fabric. While inferior to alpaca and guanaco wool, llama fleece is soft, warm, durable, and fairly lightweight. It's used for clothing, rugs, and rope.
Unlike their wild guanaco cousins, seen in today's image in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile, llamas have been popular on farms across the US since the 1980s. Llamas are surprisingly clean, smart, and loyal companions that can even be trained as therapy animals. Their gentle nature has made them popular at petting zoos and farms, and unlike their camel cousins, they rarely spit at humans. They're also good guard animals that will charge at predators and scream at intruders. With a population of almost 30,000 in the country, Americans have clearly fallen in love with llamas.