Speaking of camels, we generally think of Bactrian camels with two humps, in fact, whether it is a bactrian camel or a dromedary camel, they are all from North America with the same ancestor, but after arriving in Africa and Asia, they gradually evolved into different forms in various places. From the current number of existing, the largest number is the dromedary camel, there are now about 14 million heads, and the Bactrian camel is only about 1.3 million, in addition to the dromedary camel and the Bactrian camel, there is also a wild camel living in Central Asia, the wild camel also has a double hump, the wild camel in the world is distributed in Mongolia and northwest China and other places, the number is only about 1000, on the verge of extinction.
Known as the boat of the desert, camels are quite hungry and thirsty, and in the Gobi Desert, deserts, mountains and snowy meadows, camels are often able to play a role that is difficult for other means of transport, and are also very important pack animals in these areas. Many people know that camels are very thirst-tolerant, but why? Some people may say that the camel's hump stores a lot of water, but this is not the case, because the camel's stomach has many small bubbles filled with water, which we call "water floating", which is actually the camel's water reservoir. Camels in general drink enough water can not drink water for two weeks, camels in the process of drinking water, the amount of water to drink is also more amazing, according to a Bactrian camel to calculate, it can drink 114 liters of water in 10 minutes, these water is actually stored in the water float.
What is the camel's hump for?
We know that camels need to eat a lot of food before they set off, so that they can store more nutrients in the hump, so that once they enter the desert and are short of water and food, the camels can rely on these nutrients stored in the hump to survive, so the camel's hump is stored in the form of fat energy (nutrients) for consumption. Camels can survive for up to a month without eating, relying on the energy stored in the hump. So on the whole, a camel can survive for two weeks without drinking water or eating food, a real desert boat.
Why does someone say that a dead camel in the desert cannot be touched?
In fact, there is no very mysterious explanation, some of it is just a biological problem. After the death of the camel, the body's life activity stops, the microbial activity continues, we know that in the human and animal body no spore anaerobic bacteria are widely distributed, especially in the respiratory tract, mouth, intestine, they together with aerobic bacteria and facultative anaerobic bacteria constitute the normal flora of the body, under normal circumstances, they maintain balance.
When the camel dies, the anaerobic bacteria in the camel body will flood, decompose the camel tissue and produce carbon dioxide and other gases, these gases will be stored in the camel body, like an inflated balloon, if you hold a sharp object to contact such a camel carcass, it may cause the camel carcass to explode, due to the long-term decay of the camel carcass, there must be a large number of harmful substances in the body, in the process of explosion will be splashed around, the harmful bacteria inside may pose a threat to human health, so do not touch.
In fact, not only camels, there are also such cases in nature, but very few, this is because whenever the animal dies, some carnivorous animals will come to share the food, even if the food is not fresh, there are scavenger armies to share the food, so in nature there is very little chance of letting it naturally decay this phenomenon, most of the time it is eaten by other animals. Nature is so wonderful, scavengers have a powerful stomach acid, can kill a large number of bacterial viruses, they are not easy to get sick when eating spoiled food, but also can play a role in purifying the environment. This is because they eat the carcasses of other animals that have spoiled and deteriorated, which greatly reduces the risk of other living animals contracting diseases and ensures the benign development of nature.