The vicuna ( Vicugna vicugna ) is a South American Mammifère , of the family of the Camélidés. It is only the species kind Vicugna .

Physical description

Vicuna has a height with the garrot from 0,7 to 1,10 meters and it is long of 1,40 to two meters, which makes of it smallest of the Camélidés. Vicuna has a long and muscular neck and a fine muzzle. Its short Queue is fawn-coloured on the top and white or beige in lower part. Its Oreille S is long, pointed and fine, its Patte S, long and fine also. The lower incisors of vicuna are very long and it push continuously, as at the Rongeurs.

Its Back, its Neck, its head and the front of its legs is of fawn-coloured color, contrary to its chest and behind of its legs which them are of white color. Its Pelage is consisted of the finest fiber after the Soie. Its breast piece decorates long white hairs which can measure up to 30 centimetres length.

Its weak weight varies between 40 and 60 kilograms.

Manners

Vicuna saw in groups made up of a male , two or three Femelle S and the their small ones in 80% of the cases. These groups are called Harem S. In 20% of the cases, some unmarried males gather inside the same territory.

Vicuna lives the cold, deserted and hostile high plateaus of the Andes cordillera, which is located at an altitude ranging between 3  500 and 5  800 meters above the sea level. It passes most of its day to be nourished, holding the night with the Rumination. Vicunas in harems maintain a small distance between them, except the male which is held to 10 or 15 meters of the group. The sound vocabulary of vicunas is rather restricted, because for share of the plaintive “onhonh…” which are used to attract the males, vicuna is not used of the sound to communicate. She prefers the postures like means of communication.

Vicuna is a Animal Diurne, because it grazes during the day and it ruminates the night while sleeping. Vicuna does not have a shelter; when it puts its small low, it makes it into full meadow and at the time of a storm of hail (they are frequent on the high plateaus of the Andes cordillera), it lies down, the neck lengthened with the short-nap cloth of the ground to protect itself. Vicuna is very well adapted to displacements; its long and fine legs, its isolated Finger S and its members close to the center of gravity enable him to run up to 40 kilometers per hour on a stony ground. As for its long neck, it is used to him as beam to stabilize it during the race.

Nutrition

Vicuna nourishes only Graminée S as well as other herbaceous plants. Vicuna is consequently Herbivore. It succeeds in selecting the starts-up thanks to its higher Lèvre split into two which has the skill to sort grasses. Its Incisive S represents another adaptation to its food mode, because they are very broad and they push without stop. Its long neck enables him to reach the ground for brouter without having to lean its body.

Predatory

Among the wild animals, the Puma, the fox of the Andes and the Condor are principal the Prédateur S of vicuna. But the human one, with the assistance of the dog, enormously drove out it since the arrival of the Spanish , in 1532. Whereas there were 1,5 of them million for the period INCA, their number fell in a dramatic way until it does not remain about it almost more, in 1965. Since, a severe law prohibited the hunting of the vicuna, which does not need thus officially more to fear the man.

Distribution

Vicuna lives exclusively in South America, mainly in the central Andes. Have finds these animals in Bolivia, with the Peru, the Chile, and in the North-West of the Argentine.

The Peru with the most important population, but Bolivia counts also an important wild population in the south-west of the country.

Protection

Argentinian part of the vicuna populations of , Chile, all the populations of the Peru and Bolivia are registered with the Annexe II of Quote. All the other populations are registered with the Annexe I of Quote.

The protection founded since the years 1960 made it possible the population to be reconstituted, and it is estimated at 125.000 animals in 2006.

External bonds

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