Vicuna is the rarest, softest, lightest, warmest and most expensive wool on earth.

The vicuna is a small, graceful camelid whose only natural habitat is the highlands of the Peruvian Andes. Residing at an altitude of 13,000 to 18,000 feet above sea level, they have developed the warmest wool on earth.

At a width of only 12 microns in diameter, it is the finest animal fiber which can be spun into wool. (The next closest fiber is cashmere with a width of 15 microns.) The wool was so prized by the Incas that only their kings and nobility were permitted to wear it.

Once numbering in the millions, the vicuna was nearly hunted to extinction. In 1960, it was estimated that only 6,000 vicuna survived. Now, thanks to international conservation laws and commercial breeding, there are over 200,000 vicunas and the population is recovering.

Since each vicuna only produces about 250 grams of fiber every two years, this is definitely the rarest fiber on the planet. (It takes more than one vicuna underfleece to produce a single scarf.) By purchasing legally shorn vicuna products, you can help protect this still endangered species.