Down The Research Rabbit Hole

My camelid journey started with a Christmas sweater.

The sweater in question belongs to one of my coworkers. It’s black, with a white llama festooned in red and green decorations. Or maybe it’s an alpaca. That was the beginning—a quick Google search on how to identify a llama vs. an alpaca.

(It was an alpaca, by the way. Their faces are shorter, as are their ears.)

My first question was quickly followed up with a second – are llamas and alpacas part of the same family, like the big cats? Yes, they are. This is how I discovered camelids.

Members of the family Camelidae, called camelids, are native to Asia, Africa, and South America. They are herbivores with long necks and legs, small heads with narrow faces, and three-chambered stomachs (as opposed to the four-chambered stomachs of rumens like cattle, goats, sheep, deer, and giraffes). Camels (dromedary or Bactrian), llamas, alpacas, guanacos, and vicunas are all camelids.

That should have been the end of my impromptu research.

Except.

Well, there were some interesting search results that referenced the United Nations. Recent news articles from sources around the world. Why???

It turns out, the UN declared 2024 to be the International Year of the Camelids. These lanky animals with oddly compelling gazes are so important to everyday life in more than 90 countries that the United Nations dedicated a year to increasing awareness of their significance.

At this point, I was utterly invested. I needed to learn more about camelids. But Google? It was failing me. All I wanted was a reliable source with well-organized information written above an elementary reading level in an easily navigable format, with cultural, historical, and biological information, as well as maps and images. That’s not too much to ask, surely?

Google wasn’t up to the challenge. But BadgerLink was.

A Modern Take on a Classic Resource

Some of you may remember the magical childhood discovery of the encyclopedia, a massive collection of color-illustrated books with information about everything. They were your one-stop shop for introductory information on any topic.

Seriously, look at the soulful eyes of this vicuña.

Over the years, internet access has made print encyclopedias a mostly irrelevant resource, good for teaching children about basic research strategies and creating visual appeal on a bookshelf, but not much else. Wikipedia is fine for looking up quick facts about well-documented topics, but presents a whole host of issues for in-depth research (fluctuating reading levels, inconsistent organizational structures, and information from resources of varying ages and reliability all mixed together, just to name a few).

One of the many resources provided for free by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is the Britannica Library. It’s like the old print encyclopedias, but more and better. There are videos. Hundreds of images. Direct links to related subjects. PDFs of relevant magazine articles. Maps. Articles in your choice of three reading levels. It’s the spirit of the old encyclopedia unconstrained by page count and enhanced by the opportunities of the internet.

Guanacos are native to South America.

The Britannica Library was a camelid goldmine. I found a video about alpaca shearing and wool processing and weaving in the Andes. A world map showing native regions of each camelid. An article about pre-Columbian civilizations which discussed camelids’ roles in agricultural adaptations, burial practices, sacrificial inheritance rights, and constellations, amongst other cultural influences. Everything I wanted and more.

If you, too, have a fond nostalgia for encyclopedias, want to learn more about camelids, or enjoy a good tumble down the research rabbit hole, you’ll love the Britannica Library. Go check it out.