Vidaurre's
engraving from 1776 depicting four of the five South American camelids once
recognised – llama (top left), hueque aka Chilihueque (top right), vicuna (bottom left), guanaco
(bottom right) (public domain)
Llamas are very familiar
animals to science and the general public alike. As will now be revealed in
this ShukerNature blog article, however, they may well have once shared their
native Andean homelands with a highly unfamiliar, all-but-forgotten close relative
whose zoological identity and disappearance have remained unexplained for well
over 300 years.
ASIAN CAMELS AND
SOUTH AMERICAN LLAMAS – THE LAST OF THEIR DYNASTY
Back in
prehistoric times, the camelids were a very diverse taxonomic family of
artiodactyl (even-toed) ungulates, distributed widely across the globe and
represented by small, large, humped, humpless, short, tall, and sometimes very
tall forms (such as North America's prairie-inhabiting giraffe camel Aepycamelus,
aka Alticamelus).
Early
restoration of Aepycamelus the giraffe camel by Heinrich Harder in 1920
(public domain)
Today, however,
this once-mighty and extremely diverse dynasty is reduced to just six
representatives – the two species of humped camel (one-humped dromedary Camelus
dromedarius and two-humped Bactrian C. bactrianus) native to Asia
(plus feral populations variously established in parts of Europe and Australia);
and the four humpless species native to South America. These latter four species
are the vicuna, alpaca, llama, and guanaco.
Following the
discovery and conquest of South America by the Spanish during the 1500s, its
humpless camelids attracted great interest from Western naturalists, with the
llama in particular featuring in a number of bestiaries (such as Edward
Topsell's famous work The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents, 1658),
in which it was generally referred to as the allocamelus.
The
llama or allocamelus as depicted in Edward Topsell's bestiary The History of
Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents (1658) (public domain)
It even entered
European heraldry, where it was sometimes dubbed the ass-camel, and was duly
represented with the head of an ass and the body of a short-legged, convex-backed
camel.
The New World's camelid
quartet also incited much confusion as to how they were related to one another.
For whereas the vicuna and guanaco are wild species, the llama and alpaca are
entirely domesticated.
Llama (© Dr Karl Shuker)
And to make
matters even worse, the term 'llama' eventually established itself colloquially
as a term not just specific to its own particular single species but also as a general
term covering all four South American species.
Eventually, the
consensus was that the small goat-like vicuna was not just a valid species but
one so distinct from the others that it deserved its own genus, and was duly
dubbed Vicugna vicugna. The remaining trio were housed together in a
second genus, Lama, and were formally christened Lama guanicoe (=huanacos)
(the guanaco), L. glama (the llama), and L. pacos (the alpaca),
with both the llama and the alpaca being deemed to be domesticated descendants
of the guanaco.
Guanaco
(public domain)
DNA studies
published in 2001, however, revealed that the alpaca is in fact most closely
related to the vicuna, and is believed to have descended from this latter
species, not from the guanaco after all. Consequently, the alpaca is now housed
with the vicuna in the genus Vicugna, as Vicugna pacos.
Alpacas
(public domain)
In addition,
there are two non-taxonomic breeds or varieties of alpaca – the rare Suri
alpaca, sporting a long, shiny, very soft, slightly-curled fleece, which is
very expensive; and the more common Huacaya alpaca, sporting a shorter,
fluffier fleece, which is far less expensive.
CAMELID HYBRIDS –
THE HUARIZO AND THE CAMA
Yet even though
they are now split into separate genera, the alpaca and the llama are sufficiently
closely related genetically to yield viable crossbred offspring– a hybrid resulting
from interbreeding between a male llama and a female alpaca is known as a
huarizo. Much smaller than llamas, it is greatly valued for its very lengthy
fleece and gentle disposition, but is usually sterile. Remarkably, moreover,
there have even been cases of successful intergeneric hybridisation in
captivity between male dromedaries and female llamas, the resulting camel x
llama crossbreed being referred to as a cama.
Adult
cama (© unknown to me – all information would be welcomed; photographs included
on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
This surprising
feat was first achieved in 1998, via artificial insemination, at the Camel
Reproduction Centre in Dubai, the aim being to create an animal with the size,
patience, and stamina of a camel but with a fleece at least as good as (if not
better than) a llama's. The first cama, a male, born in 1998, was named Rama; a
second cama, a female, was born in 2002, and was named Kamilah. In each case,
it looked like a large version of its llama mother in overall appearance, and
lacked its camel father's hump, but it did possess his small ears and short
tail.
A HISTORY OF THE
HUEQUE, CHILE'S MISSING
MINI-LLAMA
Hybrids
notwithstanding, what is not widely known nowadays is that in addition to the
vicuna, alpaca, guanaco, and llama, not so very long ago there may also have
been a fifth New World camelid species, or at least a well-defined
variety of one of the still-existing quartet. Formerly found in Chile, this
seemingly-lost and certainly long-forgotten llama was known as the hueque, or the
chilihueque in full.
Between the 16th
and 17th Centuries, Spanish-speaking travellers who visited the
central and south-central valleys of Chile reported the
presence in territories owned by the Araucanians (i.e. the Mapuches peoples
known here as the Moluche) of a small, distinctive type of llama not seen
anywhere else. Moreover, the travellers learnt that its existence here pre-dated
the Hispanic conquest, and it may well have been adopted by the Moluche from
the Inca culture. This intriguing creature was the hueque, which was generally bred
not as a beast of burden (like the llama is in other South American countries)
but for its meat and in particular for its fleece, which was extremely soft, luxuriant,
and so long that it dragged on the ground as the animal walked.
Having said
that, Chilean Jesuit priest and naturalist Father Juan Ignacio Molina noted in
his 2-volume magnum opus The Geographical, Natural and Civil History of
Chili (1782) that when the Dutch sea captain Admiral Joris van
Spilbergen had landed on Chile's small Mocha Island in 1614, he had observed
hueques being used to pull small carts by Mapuches living there. Confusingly,
however, further on in his book Molina contradicted himself by stating that what
van Spilbergen had seen hueques being used for on Mocha Island was pulling
ploughs.
Father
Juan Ignacio Molina (public domain)
Writing in 1550
after having conquered southern Chile, the Spanish conquistador Pedro de
Valdivia stated that the hueque was very abundant in this region, and that not
only were the inhabitants dressed exuberantly in the most elegant woollen
clothes but even their houses were stocked full of wool. Also present here was
a second camelid, known as the luan, but it was the fleece of the hueque that
was always used to manufacture the most prized, sought-after woollen garments.
Indeed, the Spaniards were so impressed by this animal's superior fleece that
they dubbed it 'the sheep of the land',
The luan was
generally identified as the guanaco, but what exactly was the hueque? There was
no doubt that it too was some type of llama (using this term in its general
sense here), but its precise nature incited much controversy among early
naturalists. Two conflicting schools of thought eventually arose. One asserted
that it was a local (semi-)domesticated variety of the guanaco distinct from
the llama, the other claimed that it was one and the same as the llama and that
it had been introduced here from further north, but neither option garnered a
significant majority of support. This remains true today.
Guanaco
photographed in Chile's
Torres del Paine National Park (public domain)
The few
illustrations of the hueque that were produced while it still existed generally
depicted it as being similar to the llama but somewhat smaller in overall size,
with a slightly shorter neck and legs, but sporting a thicker fleece. However,
these were based merely upon verbal accounts received from others, rather than
upon first-hand observations made by the engravers themselves, so they may not
be wholly accurate representations of this lost form. Written accounts of the
hueque by Molina and others claimed that it occurred in several different
colours – white, brown, black, and grey. Molina also stated that it was
approximately 6 ft long, and stood
about 4 ft tall.
Perhaps the most
natural-looking representation of an alleged hueque, depicted alongside a llama, is
the one reproduced below:
An
engraving from a book by 1716, depicting a llama (on the left) and an alleged hueque (on the
right) (public domain)
It appeared as
Plate 22 in A Voyage to the South-Sea and Along the Coasts of Chili and Peru in the Years 1712, 1713 and 1714,
which was written by French explorer in side view, the llama was merely depicted standing face-on, thereby
preventing direct morphological comparisons of these two camelid types to be
readily made.
The reason why the hueque had vanished by the end of the 17th Century, possibly even earlier, remains unclear. However, its extinction coincided with a major influx of domestic cattle into this region of Chile, brought here from elsewhere for their meat, milk, leather, and as sturdy beasts of burden, as well as European sheep introduced for their wool and meat. Consequently, it has been surmised that not only did they render the hueque superfluous, but these non-native livestock beasts may also have carried with them diseases hitherto unknown here and to which the hueque had no resistance, thus wiping it out.
As for the
hueque's identity, that is still unresolved too – or is it? Although, as noted
earlier, attempts have been made by various researchers to link the hueque to
either the guanaco or the llama, I personally favour a third candidate – the
alpaca. So too did English writer and alpaca authority William Walton when
describing the alpaca of Peru in his book An Historical and Descriptive
Account of the Peruvian Sheep, Called Carneros de la Tierra (1811), though
his contribution to the debate concerning the hueque's identity had long been
forgotten until I encountered his book recently.
A
guanaco with a Peruvian warrior, from Walton's above-cited book (public domain)
Of the four
still-extant South American camelids, it is unquestionably the alpaca that offers
the closest correspondence to the hueque. After all, both the hueque and the alpaca
were/are bred predominantly for their fleece; both of them yielded/yield wool
so profuse and luxuriant that it could/can reach the ground (especially in Suri
alpacas); and both of them were/are smaller and more compact than the larger,
longer-necked, longer-limbed llama and guanaco.
Could it be,
therefore, that a variety of alpaca was either raised within or introduced into
central and southern Chile from northern Chile or Peru (where the alpaca occurs
naturally), and it was this alpaca form that was in reality the mysterious,
now-vanished hueque? If nothing else, it is interesting to note that in an
engraving from Gómez de Vidaurre's Compendio della Storia Geografica,
Naturale e Civile del Regno del Chile (1776), depicting
four South American camelids and opening this present ShukerNature blog article,
the hueque is included, but the alpaca is absent. Is this strange omission of
such a well known relative in favour of the much more obscure hueque an
indication that these two forms were actually one and the same creature?
Llama pattern on a Chilean
alpaca-wool jumper that was owned by my mother Mary Shuker (© Dr Karl Shuker)
After all, if
the hueque were actually a separate, distinct species in its own right and was
once abundant in southern Chile, plentiful
remains of this creature would surely have existed and would have been readily
delineated by scientific scrutiny from those of the four known South American
camelids. Yet no formal scrutiny and osteological differentiation seems to have been
documented, thereby indicating that the hueque was indeed conspecific with one
of the pre-existing quartet of species.
Consequently, I
conclude that the hueque was most likely to have been a breed or variety of
alpaca. Sadly, however, we may well be more than 300 years too late to ever
know for sure.
And finally, on a much lighter note,
straight from a famous if fictitious animal linguist's circus of exotic
creatures, here is the rarest llama-inspired cryptid of all:
Courtesy of Doctor John Dolittle, my
very own pushmi-pullyu (© Dr Karl Shuker)
My cousin has llamas on her farmette in California
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