Brief history of the chinchilla

Genus Chinchilla

Species: Chinchilla brevicaudata

             Chinchilla Lanigera

In Chinese, they are called lóng māo, which literally means "dragon-cat".

Chinchilla  literally means "Little Chincha

 In fact, they have the highest fur density of any land animal with more than 20,000 hairs per square cm

Chinchillas

Chinchillas come from the rocky arid regions of the Andes; they tend to be found at heights of 800 to 6500 meters.  They live in communities made up of up to a 100 in number and live in between the crevices in the rocks and burrows. Chinchillas are herbivores. Their diet in the wild consists of plants, roots, and grasses, they are active early morning and evening.  There are no alpha pairs as in other animals. The gestation period is long for a small mammal around 111 days.  The young are born fully furred. The female can produce up to two litters per year.  Lactation lasts between 6 to 8 weeks. The chinchilla’s natural predators are owls, foxes, snakes and hawks. The chinchilla's chief predator is man however. Nature has given the chinchilla several survival mechanisms to adapt to its habitat. Their colouration helps them blend into their surroundings. Their coats density helps its survival in the cold weather and avoidance of fleas and other parasites. Under the microscope a chinchilla’s individual hair follicle reveals that it is composed of 80 to 100 hairs.  Their fur also offers a defence technique, when being attacked they can release their fur, this hopefully gives them enough time to escape. The chinchilla’s tail acts as a balance when they jump, they also use their hind legs to jump great distances.

Chinchillas have been know since prior to the sixteenth century when Spanish explorers first reached South America and admired the warm, lightweight clothing that had been made by the local population from the chinchilla's pelts. It was these explorers that were responsible for introducing chinchilla fur into Europe after bringing pelts back from their travels. As the fur became more and more popular, the intensive trapping of the animal almost led to it's extinction as between 120-150 pelts were required to produce one fur coat.  Chile alone shipped over 435,000 pelts in 1899. Between 1895 and 1921 over three million chinchilla pelts including a small number of live animals were exported from Chile. Some authors report that more then 21 million chinchillas were actually killed between 1840 and 1916 and only a fraction of those caught were able to be exported. They are now on the endangered species list, and are protected by law.

A Mr M Chapmen brought the first chinchillas back to America in the 1920’s. Once the Chapmen herd was established, their cost soared as high as $3200 per pair. By the mid-1960’s thousands of chinchilla ranches were created, and chinchillas began to be offered as pets, their price usually $100 per animal.