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| SCIENTIFIC
CLASSIFICATION |
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| COMMON
NAME: |
dromedary
camel |
| KINGDOM: |
text |
| PHYLUM: |
Chordata |
| CLASS: |
Mammalia |
| ORDER: |
Artiodactyla |
| FAMILY: |
Bovidae |
| GENUS
SPECIES: |
Camelus
(camel) dromedarius (running) |
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| DESCRIPTION: |
Woolly
coat, caramel in color that often looks shaggy from
seasonal shedding. Males are considerably larger
than females and have an inflatable soft palate
which they use to attract females (It looks like
a frog's throat when inflated.) Both sexes have
a single hump on the back. |
| MALE |
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| FEMALE |
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| SIZE: |
1.8
to 2.3 m (5.8-7.5 ft.) tall at shoulder |
| MALE |
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| FEMALE |
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| WEIGHT: |
300
to 690 kg (661-1521 lb.) |
| MALE |
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| FEMALE |
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| DIET: |
Almost
any vegetation they can find |
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| GESTATION: |
12
to 13 months |
| ESTRAL
PERIOD |
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| NURSING
DURATION |
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| SEXUAL
MATURITY: |
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| MALE |
At
5 years |
| FEMALE |
At 3 to 4 years |
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| LIFE
SPAN: |
40
to 50 years |
| MALE |
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| FEMALE |
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| RANGE: |
Middle
East and northern Africa; introduced to Australia
and Namibia |
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| 1. |
The
dromedary camel is capable of drinking 100 L (30
gal.) of water in just 10 minutes. |
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| 2. |
Camels
store fat in the hump, not water! In fact baby camels
are born without a hump because the layer of fat
does not develop until they eat solid food. |
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| 3. |
Unlike
most mammals, a healthy camel's body temperature
fluctuates throughout the day from 34oC to 41.7oC
(93oF-107oF.) This fluctuation is important because
it allows the camel to conserve water by not sweating
as the environmental temperature rises. |
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| 4. |
The
dromedary camel is no longer considered a wild animal.
In Africa and Arabia it is a semi-domesticated animal
that free ranges but is under the control of herders. |
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| One
of the reasons a camel is well adapted to live in
the desert is because of its feeding behavior. It
selects only a few leaves from each plant. A camel
is also capable of eating parts of the foliage that
other species do not, such as the thorns of the
acacia tree. Foraging herds of camels will spread
over a large area so that they do not eat all of
the vegetation. These selective styles of feeding
reduce the stress on the plant life and avoids competition
between camels and other arid region herbivores.
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|
|
| Al-Saihati,
Abdul-Wahed A. "The Ship of the Desert."
Zooculturist, Vol. 5 No. 3, Winter 1992. |
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| Katz,
D. "Keeping Camels Down on the Farm",
Science, September 1982, pp. 79-80. |
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| Kingdom,
J. East African Mammals: Large Mammals. Vol.
IIIB. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
pp. 280-293. |
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| Nowak,
R.M. (ed.). Walker's Mammals of the World.
Vol. II. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
1991. |
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| Parker,
S.P. (ed.) Grzimek's Encyclopedia: Mammals.
Vol. 5. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989. pp. 82-95. |
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| Schmidt-Nielsen,
Knut. Desert Animals, Physiological Problems
of Heat and Water. New York: Dover Publications
Inc., 1979. |
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