Knowledge about camels

1. There are two kinds of camels in the world - dromedaries and bactrian camels. The wild Bactrian camel is the only wild camel left in the world and exists in only two places, the Arjinshan National Nature Reserve in Xinjiang and the Dagobi Reserve in Mongolia.

2. Camels have evolved a number of adaptive mechanisms to adapt to harsh environments such as deserts, including three layers of eyelids and two layers of eyelashes to keep out the sand. Their lips are very thick, allowing them to eat thorny plants that other creatures cannot. Their large foot plates are flat, preventing them from sinking as they walk across the desert.

3. The camel's hump is the easiest feature to notice. But contrary to what most people think, the hump is not used to store water, but to store fat. When food is in short supply, this fat can be converted into water and energy.

4. When camels have water to drink, they can drink it fast, downing as much as 113 liters of water in 13 minutes. They rehydrate faster than any other mammal in the world.

5. Camels have been providing meat and milk to humans for thousands of years. Camel milk is very nutritious, containing 10 times more iron and three times more vitamin C than cow's milk.

Extended Information:

The role of the hump:

What's stored in the hump is deposited fat, not a bag of water. Instead, the fat is oxidized to produce metabolic water available for the camel's vital activities.

The metabolism of fat cannot take place without the participation of oxygen, and the loss of water from the lungs during respiration with oxygen intake is not comparable to the metabolic water from fat. This fact suggests that the Camelopardalis does not act as a solid water reservoir at all, but only as a huge storehouse of energy.

The rumen of the camel is divided by the muscle mass into a number of blind sacs, the so-called "water sacs". Those sacs, which can hold only 5 to 6 liters of water, are mixed with fermented feed, which is a sticky green juice.

These green juices contain about the same concentration of salt as blood, making it difficult for camels to utilize the water in their stomachs. Moreover, the bladder is not effectively separated from the rest of the rumen and is too small to constitute an effective water reservoir.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Camel