Dry and hot, windy and sandy, vast golden desert does not know how many animals have come in and out. However, the domesticated camel can become a reliance for people to cross the desert, and it has earned the name of "Desert Boat". What are the tricks of a camel that trudged a long journey through the desert?
Water is a must-have to cross the desert, and the camel's thirst-quenching stunt is a set of combination punches. The first is to save water. Camels have few sweat glands and hardly sweat; their feces are drier than those of other mammals; and they have a powerful kidney that prevents excessive moisture from being excreted in their urine. What's more, the camel does not even let go of the air, when exhaling, the nostrils will be like a condenser, the water that condenses around the nostrils will be recovered to prevent the water from being lost; at night, the air humidity will increase, and its nostrils can also condense water from the air. The second is water storage. If a Bactrian camel can drink 114 liters of water in 10 minutes, it is really good! This is because it has a water reservoir in its body. Its red blood cells also adapt to this change and do not rupture and die under the extreme change in blood water content.
Camels also have a good way to deal with the wind and sand. Its eyelashes are long and thick, which can block the wind and sand from blowing into the eyes, and there are sand-proof and wind-blocking valves in the nostrils, and even the ears are round and small, and they are full of ear hairs, which are enough to keep the wind and sand out of the ears.
The heat can not stop the camels from walking, in the 50 ° C high temperature they are still the same, the body temperature can change slightly according to the temperature. Walking on hot grains of sand, the camel's wide soles are not only heat-resistant, but also keep it from sinking. The camel can also lie down on the hot sand to rest - its chest and knees are covered with meat pads, and before it falls, its front legs are pushed forward forcefully, and its hind legs are pushed back, pushing the hot sand on the surface away, and then touching the ground with meat pads. The meat pad not only insulates heat, but also allows a certain space between the camel and the ground, which can be ventilated and easy to dissipate heat.
Although camels have a desert survival skill, unfortunately, wild camels have been very rare under the interference of human activities. Wild dromedary camels were extinct at least 2,000 years ago, wild bactrian camels were once thought to be extinct, and the occasional "wild camel" is thought to have been formed by domestic camel rewilding. In 1999, things took a turn for the better, and genetic testing showed that the genetic difference between wild camels and domestic camels found in Lop Nur in Xinjiang, China, reached 3%, surpassing the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees. The study confirmed that this was the only remaining wild camel population in the world, and the subsequent establishment of the Argin Mountain- Lop Nur Wild Bactrian Camel Nature Reserve became the only wild camel habitat in the world. At present, there are fewer than a thousand wild camels left, which are more precious than giant pandas.