Can't help lovin' them New World camels, the llamas! And I love their scientific name too: (Lama glama). Note: there is no mistake here. The common name bears the Spanish spelling with a doubled "ll" which is sounded as a y.
These guys are their own masters. We have a lot to learn about them, and from them. The picture shows an actual greeting scene, where a human meets, in turn, the llamaic ambassadors from Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru, each approaching with great dignity. It is their custom to offer their guest some hay, touch noses, bow, and then allow the next ambassador to greet the guest. I kid you not. This all happened exactly as I'm telling it (except for the symbolic countries of origin), at a Maine outdoor sports camp that keeps a variety of domestic animals on the property.
I had forgotten this fact, which Wikipedia reminded me of: all camelids originated in North America. I had just assumed that they originated in Asia and came to the Western Hemisphere across the Bering Strait land bridge or something like that. Below, a map from Wikipeda reconstructs probable camelid migration routes. Africa and Asia are of course famous for their variety of exotic animals in almost all mammal families. Gee, for once we can claim to have some neat animals that sprang up on our side of the water!
. Oh and llamas even have their own song, courtesy of albinoblacksheep.com. It's very funny and the music and images go very fast. It's a loop, so shut it off, when you've had enough.
1 comment:
Oh, gosh, I love that llama song. Never seems to get old.
By the way, having been to La Brea Tar Pits, I definitely believe that camels could have evolved here.
If it hadn't been for the extinction in the Pleistocene (35 taxa genera go extinct- due to either climate or humans), we'd still be dodging giant sloths, tigers and beavers! Oh my!
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