Lama glama
The llama is a domesticated South American camelid, widely used as a meat and pack animal by Andean cultures since the pre-Columbian era.

Andrija12345678 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- LamaPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Lama
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Lama
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Artiodactyla
Time the record covers
At most 4.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 774 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Lama glama on record, most of them in the Pliocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Pliocene50%
- Pleistocene50%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
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The named rock units Lama glama has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Lama glama and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Lama glama and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
66 taxa- Aenocyon dirus1 site
- Andinomys1 site
- Arctotherium tarijense1 site
- Arctotherium wingei1 site
- Bufo cf. marinus horribilis1 site
- Calomys1 site
- Canis proplatensis1 site
- Canis tarijensis1 site
- Ceratophrys1 site
- Cervus percultus1 site
- Cervus tuberculatus1 site
- Chaetophractus villosus1 site
- Charitoceros1 site
- Chrysocyon brachyurus1 site
- Coendou1 site
- Coendou magnus1 site
- Conepatus suffocans1 site
- Ctenomys brachyrhinus1 site
- Ctenomys subassentiens1 site
- Ctenomys subquadratus1 site
- Cuvieronius tropicus1 site
- Dasypus tarijensis1 site
- Equus (Amerhippus) insulatus1 site
- Euphractus sexcinctus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Lama glama, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- The Eocene to Pleistocene vertebrates of Bolivia and their stratigraphic context: a review1
- Pediolagus salinicola (Rodentia, Caviidae) en el Pleistoceno tardío de la Provincia de Buenos Aires1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Lama glama
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Andrija12345678
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- JChanteloupUPS
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Llama”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLama through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)