Valerie Ann Gibson, age 11, of Hanover., Mass., for question:

What kind of animal is the vicuna?

This beautiful little beastie also spells his name vicugna. In Spanish, his native languages there is a wavy line over the letter n ‑which means that we pronounce the n as though it were ny ‑ vi‑coon‑ya. No matter how you pronounce him, the vicuna is a cousin of the camel. And, when it comes to fleece, he is the aristocrat of the hoofed animals. They say that human hair is like wire when compared with the soft, silken hair of the vicuna.

You would never take him for a camel for he has no hump. What's morel he stands only about three feet at shoulder level. The vicuna has been an aristocrat since ancient days. In the days of the Incas of Peru it was a crime punishable by death to molest the silken creature. And only the royal Incas wore robes woven from his fleece.

The little aristocrat of the fleece world is a rusty, tawny color, paler on the tummy and with a tufty white bib low on his chest. Like all members of the camel family he wears a lofty, superior expression. And, in keeping with all this, he dwells on the lofty slopes of the high Andes. He ranges through Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.

In the wild state the herd is composed of a papa vicuna, his six to twelve wives and their children. Papa is a devoted father and watches over his well dressed family as they graze the sparse uplands. He climbs to a high point to act as lookout. When trouble approaches he whistles a shrill warning and the mamas and their youngsters lope off to safety. Being camels, they dog along with two left feet forward then two right feet forward.

In some eases small herds of vicuna have been domesticated. But in the main the little aristocrat is a wild animal and, even so, not very plentiful. What's more, he is shy and wary of man the hunter. Very little true vicuna fleece every gets to market. A good deal of soft fabric sold as vicuna is really made from the soft, cashmere‑like fleece of the mexican sheep of the merino sheep and is not vicuna at all. Cloth made from vicuna fleece is properly called cumpi ‑ so a vicuna coat is, strictly speaking, a cumpi coat.

True, the little vicuna does not resemble the camel, though he belongs to the family Camelidae. He actually, however, resembles the camel ancestors more than the camel does. This wonderful family of cud chewers were originally North Americans. Camel ancestors, much like the vicuna, lived here some 40 million years ago along with the ancestors of the horse, who were then no bigger than Lassie.

Some camel ancestors trotted down to South America and some crossed to Asia, finally reaching Africa. The Asian and African camels grew bigger and, to cope with hard living conditions, grew humps to store food and special stomachs to store water. The South American camels remained mare like their ancestors. Their modern children are the llamas, the guanacos and the shy, silky vicuna.