It’s rare to find an animal that can be both a smart, gentle companion and your source of wool for the winter, but that’s the alpaca for you. Already cuter and more intelligent than their friend the llama, alpacas are a hard breed to beat — at least they were until recently, when the folks at Switzer-Land Alpacas started getting creative with their livestock’s DNA. They’ve been breeding paco-vicuñas — a cross between alpacas and their wild South American ancestor, the vicuña. This new breed (new to the United States, anyway) has the latter’s super-fine fiber and the former’s longer and denser fleece. And if the alpacaland.com website is any indication, they’re the cutest camel cousin yet, resembling a... More >>>