Described by Charles Darwin as “an elegant animal, with a long, slender neck and fine legs”, the guanaco is the largest wild member of the Guanaco is the largest member of the camelid family in South America. There is strong evidence demonstrating that the Llama originally began with the domestication of the Guanaco in the Central Andes.

Like other camelids, the guanaco walks on enlarged sole pads, with only the tips of the hooves touching the ground; in the guanaco these pads are moveable and help give grip on rocky and gravelly terrain. It lives in a wide range of environments, from hot deserts to cold and humid zones; from sea-level zones to highland zones, at an altitude of 5.000 meters.

Although still relatively widely distributed, the guanaco now occupies only 40 percent of its original range, and has become fragmented into often small and relatively isolated populations, increasing the risk of local extinctions in some areas.