The Guanaco

Abstract

In South America there are many animals, such as chinchillas, coypus and armadillos, which have no near relatives elsewhere. Among them are the South American camelidae, which are not true camels but only camel-like. They have no hump, their ears are proportionately long and their tails short and bushy, but their slender build and long necks remind one of camels. Like camels, they walk on two toes or phalanges, on the last one, as do all artiodactyles, and also on the penultimate one, so that they seem to be rather digitigrades than unguligrades. Behind their relatively long claws, below the second phalange, there is a kind of little cushion which serves as a callous sole.