The fat stored in a camel’s hump enables it to traverse vast barren stretches with minimal food and water.
Camels, those “desert schooners,” played a crucial role in trade and culture in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia for literally thousands of years. They have been used as currency for bride price, transportation, freight, food, and clothing. Without a doubt, one of the most distinctive features of this useful animal is the hump. What are camel humps for? Because they exist?
Bactrian camels are most commonly seen in Asia, often in the Gobi desert.
Camel humps are a punishment if we read the story “How the camel got his hump” by Rudyard Kipling. In this hilarious fable, Kipling paints a picture of an extremely lazy camel that would fail. His favorite word was “Humph”. When the chief djinn heard about the camel’s laziness, he went to see it and admonished it for being lazy. When the only answer he got was “Humph,” that’s what the camel got on its back: a big “humph” of its own, so he could go three days without eating and catch up on work he hadn’t done.
Author Rudyard Kipling wrote a well-known fable about how the camel got its hump.
In the real world, camel humps serve precisely that purpose: camels can go long periods without eating. Camel humps are made of fat and sustain the animal for long periods of travel and with little food. They have other physiological features that also help them survive without eating or drinking, but camel humps are certainly the most conspicuous.
Camels’ humps and other adaptations have made them the animal of choice for desert travel for thousands of years, going places no other vehicle or transport can go. The Bactrian camel is the two-humped variety most commonly seen in Asia and a traveler of the Gobi desert. The humped dromedary camel is the animal that crosses the Sahara.
Since camel humps are made of fat, they provide immediate energy. In the past, camels’ humps were thought to help them stay hydrated, but this has been disputed as the animals would use a lot of energy to metabolize fat into water to be efficient. Instead, camels can drink up to 20 gallons (75.6 liters) of water at a time, and their bodies store this water for long periods.
Camel humps also indicate the health and well-being of the animal. The hump begins to soften and shrink as the animal goes without food, but when the camel eats and rests, the hump soon recovers. Camel humps are a remarkable feature that help the animals perfectly adapt to their life in the desert.