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Llamas are svelte and cannot be distinguished by color as they come
in some 50 different hues. They have long legs, faces and
necks and can stand 1.90 meters tall.
Llamas
are the most common and strongest of the Andean camelids,
and are widely used as beasts of burden, as they can carry
on average 40 kg a day on long trips and up to 60 kg on
shorter journeys. Its average adult weight is 115 kg, and
11.5 kg at birth.
The llama takes to 348 days to whelp, and while the female
reaches sexual maturity, it generally mates from 2-3 years
in age. The male, meanwhile, mates at the age of three.
The mating and reproduction season comes between January
and April, and a month after whelping, the female is ready
to mate again. These reproduction characteristics are relatively
common for all Andean camelids.
Llamas traditionally come in two varieties, Q'ara (with little
fiber) and Ch'aku (woolly); their fiber (technically they
grow "fiber" and not "wool") is less dense
than that of alpacas, and on average the diameter of its fiber
is 28.11 microns (a micron is a measure equivalent to one-millionth
of a meter or one-thousandth of a millimeter).
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