Guanaco
species of mammal
The guanaco ( gwah-NAH-koh; Lama guanicoe) is a camelid native to South America, closely related to the domesticated llama. Guanacos are one of two wild South American camelids; the other species is the vicuña, which lives at higher elevations.
Etymology
The guanaco gets its name from the Quechua word wanaku. Young guanacos are called chulengos or "guanaquitos".
Characteristics
Guanacos stand between 1.0 and 1.3 m (3 ft 3 in and 4 ft 3 in) at the shoulder, body length of 2.1 to 2.2 m (6 ft 11 in to 7 ft 3 in), and weigh 90 to 140 kg (200 to 310 lb). Their color varies very little (unlike the domestic llama), ranging from a light brown to dark cinnamon and shading to white underneath. Guanacos have grey faces and small, straight ears. The lifespan of a guanaco can be as long as 28 years.
Guanacos are one of the largest terrestrial mammals native to South America today. Other terrestrial mammalian megafauna weighing as much or more than the guanaco include the tapirs, the marsh deer, the white-tailed deer, the spectacled bear, and the jaguar.
“Guanaco” enters the record as species of mammal. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Guanaco, species and mammal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Guanaco” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Guanaco, species and mammal provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q172886. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Guanaco” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.