Dressed as both a sea serpent and its victim — a doomed boat — Max the alpaca won the Minnesota State Fair’s 4-H Lama Costume Contest on Wednesday, hooves down.

Max, a favored friend to handler Abby Spence, 17, of Montevideo, is an alpaca, a cousin to the braver, feistier llama (two “l”s) and their brethren of the genus lama (one “l”).

This llama is not wearing a costume and I'm calling foul. First, let me take a selfie… #mn4h pic.twitter.com/PT14RmSYbq — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) August 31, 2016

Spence, who bested more than a dozen costumed competitors with one arm hidden in a Captain Hook get-up, explains it this way: Llamas, which are bigger than their cousins and have curvier ears, can be trained to herd goats and other animals, and their spitting-kicking-hissing combos have been known to take on fierce attackers, even mountain lions.

What do alpacas do?

“Alpacas will just run away,” Spence said.

Anyone who has handled the two animals can tell the difference in less time than it takes to fling a spitball. Spence’s father’s farm is home to nine alpacas, whose soft fleece makes for excellent scarf, sweater and rug material.

Max, a 4-year-old gelding, was purchased from Wisconsin along with a couple of others by Patrick Spence, proprietor of Open Prairie Alpacas, LLC, of Montevideo. The company is about four years old.

The 4-H contest has become a staple of the State Fair, and drew a standing room only crowd Wednesday to the AgStar Arena. Animals were judged on their costume, originality and poise, among other qualities befitting a llama in disguise (or an alpaca).