How Big Can Llamas Get?

So, I was thinking about TLs where the Old Worlders never reach the Americas for a variety of reasons, and obviously the main problem with New World advancement is lack of megafauna.

I did some research, and apparently the wild ancestors of llamas were FAAAAAAAR smaller than actual domesticated llamas, and I wondered, how long would it be before humans could breed llamas that were large enough to use as a horse? Already they were used as pack animals, and a larger llamas means more cargo and riders.
 
given enough time, why not.

But there's a limit to how big any animal can get, even with selective breeding. And since llamas have been domesticated for thousands of years, I suspect that limit isn't too much bigger than modern-day llamas or else the Andeans would have had bigger breeds of llamas. Alternatively, bigger llamas would be more prone to some sort of disease or injury than smaller llamas, which would affect their usefulness.
 
Well some horses get roughly moose sized, so there's probably a bit more room for growth. The Andean peoples just had no use for that because they needed small animals that could use stairs.
 
But there's a limit to how big any animal can get, even with selective breeding. And since llamas have been domesticated for thousands of years, I suspect that limit isn't too much bigger than modern-day llamas or else the Andeans would have had bigger breeds of llamas. Alternatively, bigger llamas would be more prone to some sort of disease or injury than smaller llamas, which would affect their usefulness.


I'm convinced there is lots of room to grow. Look at how big horses can get and look at how big their wild ancestors were.

Plus, llamas were domesticated for a shorter time period than horses or cattle.
 
Impirren, your majesty. . . There is a timeline that I am working on which you are more aware of than most, one that I have had to do extensive research for(and I still have to do much more), and I would like to say that this is a topic I have given some serious thought. It was actually one of the first things I looked into.

The horses that were domesticated by ancient peoples 6000 years ago were much smaller than the horses of today, a little under three quarters of the size of today's horse. It, however, only took two thousand years to reach the current size, at which point breeding ideas took a very different turn, because now it could be ridden.

The modern llama is a lot less massive than the horse- the modern horse is five times as massive- but not much smaller in actual size, and it was bread to be a pack animal- it was not a very good pack animal by the time of Columbus, but it was a lot better than when it was first domesticated. Given an extra, oh say . . . 1000 years of heavy selective breeding, in a culture that is fairly well-connected(the inca have advanced roads, the ancient horse domesticaters did not), and the Llama will start coming close to the modern horse in size and will have possibly greater endurance, although still nowhere near its camel cousins from across the sea. At that point, it may finally be logical for a people to ride the llama for extended periods of time, and some of course would doubtless get the idea to bread them for stronger backs, so that by around, say, another 1000 years later, you'd have a fair analogue to the horse.

And now I will explicitly say that there's still another 698 years before the Spaniards come after that time elapses in the timeline you are helping do cartography for, enough time in my opinion to spread the llama beyond Peru.

EDIT: In hindsight I should've mentioned that the domestication of the llama would actually be like a combination of that of the donkey, camel, and horse, and of course would go faster if the Tawantinsuyu's infrastructure (not necessarily the empire itself, just the legacy it left) is not horribly disturbed.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
what about Hip problem ? not all animals is suited to be ridden because of its bone / skeleton structure. some say dog hip structure would make it not good riding animal even if dog is as big as horse. Is Llaama hip and backbone more similar to horse than dog ?
 
what about Hip problem ? not all animals is suited to be ridden because of its bone / skeleton structure. some say dog hip structure would make it not good riding animal even if dog is as big as horse. Is Llaama hip and backbone more similar to horse than dog ?

The horse actually did not have a good hip or back for carrying things either when it started out. Selective breeding changed that immensely. The Old World camelids apparently did actually already have it though, as far as I know.

Start selectively breeding dogs for size and the proper hip, give it around two millenia, and you'd get the proper traits. Granted that's not possible to just happen in the past or in low-understanding societies when selective breeding was fully situational, and dog hips are REALLY unsuited to begin with, far more than primitive horse or llama.

Llama hips are actually rather unique, and also still unrefined, but more close to that of horses and camels than that of dogs (because they are camelids).
 
But there's a limit to how big any animal can get, even with selective breeding. And since llamas have been domesticated for thousands of years, I suspect that limit isn't too much bigger than modern-day llamas or else the Andeans would have had bigger breeds of llamas. Alternatively, bigger llamas would be more prone to some sort of disease or injury than smaller llamas, which would affect their usefulness.

i suspect they kept the llamas at current size, because that was the most practical size for them (mountain paths etc)

you would be surprised how much room there is to grow, even a feral cat (so a abandoned domestic cat kitten) can grow to 3 times or more the size of a house cat.

and t-rex evolved from something small, whales also evolved from much smaller land animals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism
 
Start selectively breeding dogs for size and the proper hip, give it around two millenia, and you'd get the proper traits. Granted that's not possible to just happen in the past or in low-understanding societies when selective breeding was fully situational, and dog hips are REALLY unsuited to begin with, far more than primitive horse or llama.

Somebody HAS to do this.
I want my pony-dog! :D
 
Llamas are descended from camels, and they've found sizable bones in the arctic that seem to indicate they were quite big. So you can make them as big as you want technically.
 
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