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 No End to Animal Facts
When I sorted pictures I had taken on a recent trip to New Zealand, I couldn’t tell if the animal I had seen was a llama or an alpaca. All I knew is that both these animals provide lovely wool. Had to look it up on the Internet. What I learned is that of the genus lama there are four kinds: alpaca, guanaco, vicuna and the llama. Llamas are gentle, inquisitive (as are members of the Q-and-A Club), intelligent (ditto), and they want to please, which makes them good domestic pets or stock. Also learned that their offspring are called “cria,” a word I hadn’t heard before. I had heard of kittens, puppies, ducklings, lambs, calfs, gosslings, chicks, piglets, and dozens of other young animals. But never a cria.
This gave me an idea of a question for the first week of the Q-and-A Club. I'll acknowledge that it's not an earth-shattering topic. I could probably live without knowing about crias. But my life is enriched because I know something I didn't know before, and because my learning came through curiosity and expanded my horizons at least a little.
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