What's the difference: Llama and Alpaca?!?

Wondering how this subject came about? I was at a park with my family and there were trimmed bushes shaped like animals; but there was this one animal that was a mystery to me. I asked my mother to read the label that was placed near the shrub-mutt and my mother said it didn't say what the animal was, just the type of plant...she called in an alpaca. Then I said it couldn't be an alpaca if anything it was a llama..thing is, I didn't really know the difference I just like to argue. SO...

This is an alpaca:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a Llama:


___________________________________________________________________________________


Other than the fact that the alpaca might need to go on a diet... they are pretty much the same thing right?! SO...I looked up the difference via dictionary.com:

1. Llama: a woolly-haired South American ruminant of the genus Lama, believed to be a domesticated variety of the guanaco: often used as a beast of burden.


1. Alpaca: a domesticated South American hoofed mammal, Lama pacos, having long, soft, silky fleece, related to the llama and believed to be a variety of the guanaco.


Aha! So in a sense I was right; alpaca is just the fat lazy cousin of the llama.

Well, my mind is certainly settled about that... though the mystery shrub animal still doesn't hold much of an impression seeing as I couldn't tell what it really was; oh well. Maybe someday I will know, or I will forget to care.

Goodnight,

Paige.