Camels and their relatives
Everyone knows that a camel is an animal with a hump, that lives in deserts and can go for days without drinking. It used also to be said that a camel stored water in its hump. This is not true. Fat is what is stored in the hump.
The camel is also called the ship of the desert, because, so it is said, it is able to carry loads across deserts where other animals would die of thirst. It is also able to live by eating the dry thorns found in deserts.
A camel's feet are also adapted to desert conditions. It has two toes on each foot. Each toe has a hoof-like nail. This makes it a cloven-hoofed ungulate. The soles of its feet are padded, so they do not lip or sink in sand.
The best-known camel is the one-humped camel. It is also called the Arabian camel and is used in large numbers in North Africa and Arabia. None of them is found in the wild today, except where they have escaped and gone wild. The one-humped camel is sometimes called a dromedary. Strictly speaking a dromedary is a special type of camel used for riding.
The only other kind of camel is the two-humped camel, or Bactrian camel, of Central Asia. This is much more hairy than the one-humped camel, with patches of long hair on its head and neck. The Bactrian camel is used for carrying heavy loads. A few wild Bactrian camels still survive in the Gobi desert.
South American camels:
Llamas are relatives of the camel that live in South America. A llama does not have a hump but, like the camel, it has a long neck and two toes on each foot. It also has a long woolly coat. Again, like a camel, a llama can go for days without water and with little food. So it is used as a beast of burden in the deserts and semi-deserts of South America.
A special kind of llama is known as the alpaca. Its coat is made up of very find long wool from which a soft, expensive cloth is made. It is bred specifically for its wool.
On the southern plains of South America lives the wild guanaco, in herds of about a hundred. The guanaco is smaller than the llama, only 120cm to the top of its head. It, too, is related to the camel but has no hump. Even smaller, and only 100cm tall, is the vicuna that lives high up in the Andes mountains. It has even been found above the snowline at 5,400m.
Millions of years ago there were wild camels of many kinds in both North and South America. Today the guanaco and the vicuna are the only wild species left in the whole of the American continent.
Arabian camels have been used for centuries as beasts of burden. A camel will carry a load of 272kg and make long journeys without drinking. One camel train went six days without water. When there is no water, plants wetted with dew provide a little moisture. Although it is what it is, this picture saddens me:
The only other species of camel still living is the Bactrian or two-humped camel, of Central Asia. It is not as tall as the Arabian but is heavier. There are wild camels or this species in the Gobi desert. They are a little different from the domesticated Bactrian camels, with smaller humps and a coat of much shorter, sandy colored hair:
Llamas live in high open country - not desert regions as camels do:
A young vicuna, one of the South American animals related to the camel. Like the alpaca, the coat of the vicuna is fine and soft and used to make cloth:
Check out this video of another type of Camel that we've never seen before, and never will:
YouTube
Resources and extra reading:
Camels and its relatives | Dromedary camel | Bactrian camel | Llama | Vicuna | Guananco
