…With DC discussion being put on hold, let us get back to
real life. Thanks to COVID-19, it still sucks, but we are not talk medicine
here, but rather zoology, or even biology. Ergo, let us talk about camels
instead!
So far, there are not any camel-themed heroes or villains,
at least none in the mainline comics, though for a while the Marlboro™ cigarettes used camel
imagery in their ads, but nicotine is not a good thing, it is anything but, so
moving onto the animals themselves…they got super-powers up the wazoo.
Firstly, their hump does not store water, but rather fat,
which enables the camel to survive in leaner times. Secondly, their feet and
knees have calluses that allow them to walk on hot – or cold – desert sand
without any discomfort. Moreover, their fur is thick enough to handle the same
heat and cold extremes of their desert homes. Pause.
Right now, science recognizes three species of existing
camels. One is the dromedary or the one-humped camel. In the wild, it is found
in Middle East and in East Africa (aka the Horn of Africa) – in the North Africa,
it is more of a domestic animal instead. It got a single hump, (duh), and it is
usually the camel featured in movies, TV series, cartoons, and etc. – it is
much better known than its’ cousins.
The other two species are the wild Bactrian camel and its’
domesticated cousin – apparently, as in case of some other animals, (such as
the yaks), the two animals are genetically different enough to be classified as
different species. Anyhow, the wild Bactrian camel lives only in the remote
areas of Mongolia and northwestern China; its’ domestic sibling is found all
over Central Asia, including the historic region of Bactria, for which the
two-humped camel is named. (Also, the two-humped camels have longer and
shaggier fur than the dromedary camel does).
…Bactria, if anyone is interested, was located on the
territories of modern Afghanistan, (cough, Taliban, cough), Tajikistan, and
Uzbekistan, (both are former Soviet republics; neither is particularly
flourishing or interesting to the West, at least officially. Ouch). As such, it
has both deserts and mountains, but the Old World camels are not found in
mountains; their American cousins are.
Technically, however, they are not camels, but camelids, and
they have no humps. There are four species of them, but at least one of them,
the alpaca, is found only in captivity – it is one of the smaller Tylopods,
(aka camels and their cousins), and is bred mostly for its’ wool, which may be
better than a sheep’s.
The camels themselves – especially the domesticated Bactrian
species – also have their wool harvested, at least sometimes, and it too is as
good as a sheep’s is. Consequently, there were attempts to release them into
the wild. It was a mixed bag – the Bactrians, released in North America in the
19th century didn’t make it, whereas in Australia feral camels
became a problem with no clear solution in sight.
Getting back to the New World, alongside the alpaca, there’s
also the llama, which is domesticated about as fully as the alpaca is, but it
was bred for strength and endurance, and its’ fur isn’t as fancy as the alpaca’s
is – but it’s still good, strong, and thick. (The alpaca nor the llama are
really neither eaten nor milked, while the Old World camels sometimes are –
especially milked. A camel is a very useful domestic animal in the desert, it
looks like! Cough).
Their truly wild cousins, the vicuna and the guanaco have
shorter fur; the guanaco in particular has appeared on various nature specials,
often narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and if you ever watched one,
(especially now, with the lockdown and everything), then you would’ve noticed
the familial resemblance to the Old World camels, no doubt, especially in the
head and neck. Anything else?
Camels and their American relatives are artiodactyl animals, aka with even-numbered, (or cloven), hooves... but they don’t have hooves as the deer, cattle, and antelopes do; rather, they
kept their toes with hoof-like nails, especially the camels proper, and as
such, they are kept separately from the aforementioned animals, in their own biological
family – the Camelidae – and their own suborder, the aforementioned Tylopoda,
which contains both the existing species, discussed above, and their extinct
relatives as well. They are a rather mixed bag, contain purely wild species,
purely domestic ones, and also the dromedary, which is found both in the wild
and in captivity, and as such, their statuses according to CITES and similar
organizations is also mixed. That said, all camelids are large, powerful
animals with strong teeth and powerful legs and should be treated respectfully,
even in zoos.
…Yes, camels proper are not really found in zoos anymore,
but the llama and the alpaca still are, especially in the petting zoos,
roadside zoos, and similar attractions. They are smaller and weaker than the
Old World camels are, but nevertheless try to remember that they are still
camelids, and as such, they have a ranged weapon as well – they can spit out
their cud with a great force, powerfully enough to stun or to blind their
attackers, or whom they perceive to be attackers, and that can hurt!
Well, this is it about camels and their relatives for now.
See you all later, and, hopefully, the lockdown will end sooner, rather than
later!
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