The New York Times added the following correction on Wednesday to a story about about Wisconsin llama races:
A picture caption on Monday with an article about llama races in Hammond, Wis., misidentified the animals shown running down the street. They are alpacas, not llamas. (While the llamas were the stars of the day, one race was designated just for alpacas, perhaps to make the llamas’ kissing cousins feel included.)
This isn’t the first time The Times has mistaken alpacas for their larger cousins. Last year, they trotted out a similar correction to an article about llama ownership:
Because of an editing error, an article last Thursday about keeping llamas as pets referred incorrectly to alpacas. They are bred for their wool; they are not beasts of burden, as are llamas.
The Washington Post also demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the alpaca’s relationship to the llama in 2004, as evinced by a correction to its crossword puzzle which turned up in a Lexis Nexis search:
We got a clue wrong in Sunday’s puzzle. The clue for 19 down was “alpaca’s cousin” but the answer was “emu.” An alpaca is a South American llama. An emu is an Australian bird that can’t fly. They are not cousins.
For the record: Llamas are distinguished by their “long banana-shaped ears” and are heavier than alpacas.
