If you like to watch travel shows, or when you like to watch adventure shows, you can see camels walking in the desert, they are lined up, in the sunset, carrying the traveling pedestrians between the dunes.
For a long time, when thinking of the desert, it must be associated with camels, because camels are the only means of transportation in the desert, so people gave it a kind name - the desert boat.
The reason why camels are the best means of transportation in the desert is that in addition to their physical strength, they can carry a large number of goods, and when the desert encounters sandstorms, due to the weight of the camels, they can provide some shelter for pedestrians, and some elderly camels have the ability to know the way.
In the endless desert, in addition to the sand dunes or sand dunes, there are no trees and other references, so that people can easily get lost in it, and if the team carries an old camel, so that the whole team is not easy to lose direction, and in the desert, once lost, it will face great danger, if you carry such an old camel, it is a safe guarantee, can reach the destination safely.
In fact, some other animals, such as horses, can also reach these things, but humans eventually abandon horses and choose camels as transportation in the desert.
One of the most important reasons is "water", in the desert, camels have two special skills that other animals do not have, and this is the basis for camels to stand in the desert.
1. The ability to find water sources
In the desert, camels have a special ability, that is, the ability to find water in the desert, which is undoubtedly a life-saving skill for teams that are prone to water shortage in the desert.
Camels have this skill because they have a very special and unusually sensitive nose. It has a valve-like structure on its nose, which is like a switch on a camel's nose, which can be opened freely, not only to block excessive moisture from the nose, but also to prevent the entry of sand and dust.
And on its nose, full of olfactory cells, in the arid desert, camels these olfactory cells are particularly sensitive to air humidity, for this humidity, in a long distance can distinguish the direction, along this direction, you can find water.
2, the utilization rate of water
If at this time, the animal with the highest water utilization rate is the camel, and in the process of evolution, the various parts of the camel's body have reached a terrifying level of "water" utilization.
Camels have a special skill, that is, to store "water" resources into their own hump, this hump is like the rumen of a cow, playing a role in storage, but not simply storing water like a water storage tank, but storing these water molecules into the precipitated fat of the hump, when like using water, these fats in the process of oxidation, will produce metabolic water, this process is like a water baby.
In the 1-2 days before the trip, camels can drink a lot of water, and their water intake can reach a staggering 60-80 liters of water, which is equivalent to the capacity of two mailboxes.
In the next 2-3 weeks, camels can be sure to survive in the desert without replenishing new water.
In this process, all parts of the camel's body are extremely stingy in conserving every water molecule. First of all, sweating, which wastes a lot of water, is impossible.
Secondly, in the process of breathing, it will also carry some water vapor from the body to the outside, perhaps in the case of abundant water resources, the water lost by these breaths is insignificant, but in the water-scarce desert, the water lost after a day of breathing is also an amazing amount of water.
In this process, the special structure of the camel's nose prevents most of the water from being lost between the breaths, first of all, its nose has a valve-type result, which can be switched freely, and a small amount of water loss can be blocked between the breaths, and in addition, the interior of its nostrils is composed of many tiny curved airways, and these tiny airways leave every water vapor in the camel's body as much as possible.
And in the excretion of excrement outside the body, it is also very far as possible to let it stay in the body for a period of time to avoid the loss of water, so the camel's urine is a concentrated urine with less water content than other animals, and the feces it excretes is also dry feces with less water content.
Although the camel is a desert boat, its evolution is for the desert, but due to the vastness of the desert, and the harsh environment, even if the camel is almost armed to the teeth, it is inevitable that there will be a time when the car overturns, that is, some camels die in the desert for some reasons.
Some survival experts claim that seeing this camel dead in the desert is an abandoned water storage tank, and when it is lost in the desert and lacks water, it can obtain the water resources in the camel's body.
But the indigenous people in the desert, those who have been dealing with camels for many years, but they scoff at this statement, when they see the dead camel, not to mention the acquisition of water resources on the camel, not even close, not even touched, generally choose to take a detour far away, they are in the desert, close to a dead camel, is a dangerous behavior.
Why?
First of all, due to the lack of food in the desert, a dead camel will be a rare meal for the animals in the ecological chain of the desert, and the animals that can survive in such a harsh environment as the desert are not poisonous or fierce! Once a person approaches, there is an unknown risk.
Secondly, most of the camels that die on the side of the road die because of lack of water, and according to the utilization rate of the camel's body, when it dies because of lack of water, it can be seen that the water in its body has been lacking to what extent, and you want to get water resources from its body, which is somewhat unrealistic.
In addition, even if the camel is not dead from lack of water, its water resources are all stored in its hump, and it is full of water fat, which can only be converted into water through oxidation inside its body, and its body does not absorb it, so when you open the hump, you see that it is a large piece of fat fat, that is, something like a large piece of fat meat, you have to go to your mouth.
And for the camels that do not die of lack of water, they are generally infected and die, in this case, rushing to contact their bodies and eating raw parts of their bodies is a very dangerous act in itself.
The above situations are just your good luck and encounter a camel that has recently died.
In fact, in the desert, when you see a dead camel, it is likely to have been dead for a long time, in the hot desert, because the camel's body metabolism stops, its body will breed a large number of bacteria, and in the process of bacteria decomposing the camel, a large amount of gas will be generated, so the whole camel will expand.
With a little force applied from the outside, the steaming camel could explode like a balloon, although the power of the explosion would not be too damaging.
But the burst of blood is enough to be sprayed, in the case of lack of water in the desert, it is obviously impossible to take a bath, wash away the dirt such as blood and water on the body, you can imagine that for a long time, the body is contaminated with these stench, in the desert originally mental pressure, and always face this stench, enough to make people collapse.
In addition, if you can bear this foul odor, but the camel breeds a large number of bacteria, the body has been spoiled, when sprayed on the body, it is easy to infect humans, not to mention the dead camel may also be infected and die, in this case, even if it can withstand the foul odor, but the impact on health is also very large.
A normal person in good health is still very dangerous in the desert, and once he falls ill due to a bacterial infection, he will die in the desert for a lifetime.
For the above reasons, when you see a dead camel in the desert, experienced people will not go near it, but take a long detour, only in this way can you avoid unknown risks.