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Viatouch
Teacher Articles
Science
No Food? No Water? No Problem!
by Anjali Amit
 I am a camel, dear reader. My ability to survive in the arid desert is legendary. What? You've not heard of the legends? Maybe it's because you call me "ship of the desert" that you think of me as a well-stocked vessel gliding across the sand, not as a four-legged beast. Let me begin by explaining why I am called so.
The Story Begins: You probably know that people walk by moving one leg after the other—right leg, left leg—on and on and on. Camels walk the same way. Our legs move on one side, followed by the legs on the other side. The difference is that we are four-legged animals; so we first move two legs on one side, and then we move the two legs on the other side. This gives us a rolling motion like a ship sailing on rough seas. It can also make my rider seasick. That is why we have been called "ships of the desert."
Food: But wait, there may be some truth to your idea of camels being well-stocked. We carry an emergency food supply with us. It is not really food, but fat derived from our eating, which we store in the hump. If we can't find food for many days, we get nutrition from this fatty deposit. As we use up the stored fat, the hump gets softer and may even flop over to one side. When we replenish our supply, the hump returns to its upright position.
Camels are ruminant animals like cows, goats, and sheep. Like them, we have three stomachs. We swallow the food whole to let the digestive process begin in the stomach. Then we regurgitate it and chew the cud at our leisure. I think it helps to stave off the hunger pangs. In fact, scientific authorities say that camels are more efficient at extracting nutrients, even from poor grazing, than other ruminant animals.
You may think that our split upper lip makes us look goofy, but it has a serious purpose. It allows us to reach further into thorny bushes for food. Curl your fingers into a fist. That would be what a regular lip looks like. If such a lip met a thorny bush it would get hurt.
Now imagine two fingers reaching into the same thorny bush for edible leaves. The split in my upper lip allows me to pull back each portion independently, so the thorns don't poke it.
Water: The camel species evolved in the arid desert environment. Water is important for survival, so we have adapted to survive in this harsh land. I'm proud of our water conservation methods. Let me list them for you.
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1. We can drink water so brackish and salty that you would reject it.
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2. We are very efficient at extracting water from moisture-rich plants.
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3. We can lose up to 40% of the water in our body, yet not suffer any harm.
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4. Our kidneys are super-efficient machines. They use so little water to get rid of the toxins that our urine looks syrupy and is saltier than seawater.
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5. Since our red blood cells are oval-shaped, not round, they can move through thicker plasma easily. Allow me to explain: In drought situations we take water from our tissues. As a last resort we reach for the liquid in the blood plasma. Plasma is the liquid portion of blood, and is 90% water. As we extract water from the plasma, it gets thicker. Here, our oval-shaped red blood cells are an advantage, as they can move through the thicker fluid more easily than a round-shaped cell.
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6. When we find a water source, we can gulp up to 21 gallons in 10 minutes. No other species can absorb so much water that fast. Our erythrocytes (red blood cells) can swell to 240% of their normal size, compared to 150% in other animals.
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7. We sweat very little—even under the hot desert sun. Instead, we let our body temperature rise (up to 106°F) to match the outside temperature. So we don't have to sweat to keep cool.
And so we pad along desert sands on our specially adapted feet. Dare I say we helped awaken the ancient world by making the Silk Road possible? Ah! The stories I could tell about that fabled four thousand mile long network of roads that connected China to the Mediterranean lands. The route passed through some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth: the Gobi and the Taklimakan deserts and the high ranges of the Himalaya, Karakorum and Kunlun mountains.
Yes, long ago we were the vehicles of choice, ferrying travelers, goods, ideas, and cultures across the desert until technology came along. Now, we are less important in your life. You travel by cars and airplanes, but we remain still the "ship of the desert"—perfectly adapted to our environment. No food, no water, no problem!
Bibliography:
Arnold, Caroline. Camel. NY: Morrow Jr. Books, 1992
Jango-Cohen, Judith. Camels. NY: Benchmark Books, 2005
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