What is a Suri Alpaca versus a Huacaya Alpaca?
The Suri, only recently imported into the United States, has a lustrous fine fiber that has no crimp, and grows in very defined pencil-like locks parallel to the body of the alpaca. The Huacaya’s fleece has a wavy quality, or crimp, that grows perpendicular to the body. The rarer Suri is estimated to be 1% to 3% of the world’s population of alpaca based on South American woolen mill statistics. There are less than 2,500 Suris in the United States.
