0:02 Picture this. You're watching a nature
0:03 documentary about the Sahara Desert. And
0:07 it's 48° C or 118 degrees Fahrenheit and
0:08 sunny. The kind of day that makes
0:11 asphalt bubble and car tires explode.
0:13 Every living thing is either dead,
0:14 dying, or desperately hiding
0:17 underground. And then the camera pans to
0:20 this absolute unit just standing there,
0:22 not panting, not sweating, not even
0:24 looking mildly inconvenienced, just
0:25 vibing in conditions that would turn
0:27 most mammals into beef jerky within
0:30 hours. And obviously this is the camel.
0:32 And before you roll your eyes thinking,
0:33 I already know everything there is to
0:35 know about the camel, water humps and
0:37 all, let me just stop you right there.
0:38 Because literally everything you think
0:40 you know about camels is wrong. They
0:42 don't store water in their humps. They
0:44 did not evolve in the desert. And
0:45 they're not even particularly good at
0:47 being normal mammals. What they are is
0:49 nature's middle finger to the laws of
0:51 biology in animals so thoroughly bizarre
0:53 that we're still discovering new ways in
0:55 which it breaks the rules. And I'm not
0:56 talking about small rule breaks here and
0:58 there. I'm talking about an animal that
1:00 can lose 30% of its body weight in water
1:02 and keep walking. Which to put that into
1:05 perspective, most mammals die at 15%.
1:07 I'm talking about an animal that can
1:10 drink 114 L of water in one sitting
1:12 without going into a coma. To which
1:14 you'd be lucky to get to 7 L without
1:16 dying. I'm talking about an animal whose
1:17 blood cells are in the wrong shape,
1:19 whose antibodies have decided to ditch
1:21 500 million years of evolution, and
1:24 whose body temperature swings by 6° C
1:26 every day just because it can't be
1:27 bothered to sweat for the quote unquote
1:29 little things like that. And here's the
1:31 first mind-blower. Camels are not from
1:34 the Middle East or Africa or anywhere
1:36 sandy for that matter. These supposed
1:38 desert animals actually started their
1:41 journey in, wait for it, North America.
1:43 Yes, you heard that right. While our
1:45 ancestors weren't even yet a twinkle in
1:46 evolution's eye, proto camels were
1:48 chilling what's now Nebraska, probably
1:50 complaining about the weather. And we're
1:52 talking way back, like 50 million years
1:54 ago back during the eosene. And the
1:56 earliest camel ancestors, animals like
1:58 Protilopus were about the size of a
2:00 beagle, not the massive humped beasts we
2:02 know of today. But over millions of
2:04 years, they evolved, diversified, and
2:06 spread across the continent, getting not
2:08 just bigger, but also weirder. And by
2:10 the mayio scene, you had creatures like
2:12 Apic camelis roaming about, which was
2:13 basically a giraffe cosplaying as a
2:15 camel with legs so long it'd make any
2:17 Instagram model jealous. But the real
2:19 plot twist came around 6 to 7 million
2:22 years ago when these American camelids
2:23 decided to take a road trip across the
2:25 bearing land bridge back when it was
2:27 actually land and not, you know, the
2:29 straight. And this wasn't some max
2:31 exodus. It was more like a slow
2:32 migration that took thousands of years
2:34 with some going to Asia and becoming the
2:36 camels we know today while others
2:38 decided to go to South America a bit
2:40 later on and become llamas, apacas,
2:43 peunas, and guanos. And then in classic
2:45 quadinary extinction fashion, the North
2:47 American camels, the originals, went
2:49 completely extinct about 10,000 years
2:51 ago, likely from a combination of
2:52 climate change and humans showing up
2:54 with pointy sticks. So while their
2:56 cousins were conquering deserts and
2:58 mountains elsewhere, the American camels
3:01 just well died. But like I said, this
3:03 wasn't the end of the line as some
3:04 camels went to Asia and other camelids
3:06 went to South America. And the split
3:08 between camels and their South American
3:10 cousins actually happened about 17
3:12 million years ago before everyone
3:14 decided to leave North America, which in
3:16 evolutionary terms is a long time ago.
3:17 That's like your last common ancestor
3:19 with a chimp plus another 11 million
3:21 years for good measure. And normally
3:23 when animal populations split for that
3:25 long, they can't breed anymore. The
3:27 genetic door, so to speak, basically
3:28 slams shut with them having different
3:31 chromosomes, incompatible DNA, the whole
3:33 we've grown apart thing, etc. It's why
3:35 you can't breed a line with a domestic
3:37 cat, even though they're both mammals of
3:39 the same general lineage. But camels,
3:41 well, camels looked at those rules and
3:43 said, "Nah, this is Alabama." Because
3:46 the one humped dramadary, i.e. Camelas
3:48 drooadarius and the two humped bactrion
3:50 camelless bactrionis can still make
3:53 babies together. These hybrids called
3:55 boots usually have one weird lopsided
3:57 hump with a dip in the middle. And
3:58 they're actually prized in some regions
4:00 because they're bigger than both parents
4:02 kind of like liers and thus can carry
4:04 heavier loads. And that's crazy and all,
4:06 but both of these guys are camels,
4:08 meaning they've only been split for 5
4:10 million years. You know, no biggie. But
4:12 in 1998, scientists at the Camel
4:14 Reproduction Center in Dubai, because
4:16 yes, that's a real place, decided to see
4:18 just how far they could push this. And
4:20 what they did was take a female llama
4:22 and artificially inseminate her with
4:24 dramadary camel sperm. The result, a
4:26 creature they called a kama. And the
4:28 kama has no hump, a face that couldn't
4:30 decide if it was a camel or llama, and
4:31 legs that were somewhere in between,
4:33 while also having a temperament, which I
4:35 quote was a behavioral disappointment.
4:37 But the important thing to note here is
4:39 that this is 17 million years of
4:41 separation. And yet it still worked. And
4:43 that's pretty wild and all, but just
4:44 their extensive breeding abilities
4:46 doesn't really address the insanity that
4:48 dark camels. And a good example of this
4:50 is the third player in the camel game
4:52 that everyone seems to forget about, the
4:56 wild bactran camel, i.e. Camelis Ferris.
4:58 Now these guys live in the Gobi Desert
5:00 of Mongolia and China. And they're not
5:02 just ferro domestic camels, despite what
5:03 their species name might have you
5:05 believe. They're instead a completely
5:06 separate species to the domestic
5:08 Bactrian camel. And how separate, you
5:11 ask? Well, they split from the ancestral
5:13 population of the Bactreans about 1.1
5:14 million years ago and have been doing
5:17 their own thing ever since. And boy,
5:19 have they been doing some weird things.
5:21 For one, wild bacterans can drink salt
5:23 water. Not just slightly brackish water,
5:25 but legitimate salt water that would
5:27 send most mammals into kidney failure.
5:28 They're also critically endangered with
5:31 only 950 left in the wild, making them
5:33 rarer than giant pandas. But apparently
5:34 nobody cares about saving questionably
5:36 looking animals. So while pandas get all
5:38 the conservation money and cute
5:40 merchandise, wild backs are out here
5:41 drinking poison water and wondering
5:43 where their PR team went. However, I am
5:45 dropping a link to a conservation group
5:47 down below. So check that out. But
5:49 anyways, this ability to drink water is
5:50 just the tip of the iceberg when it
5:52 comes to camel survival. And there's a
5:53 lot more that goes into it which lets
5:55 them survive in places that look like
5:57 Mars but hotter and with things that
5:59 want to eat you. And first up is that
6:01 coat. Now, you'd normally think an
6:03 animal living in the desert would want
6:05 less fur, not more. And that's logical
6:07 and pretty much what any reasonably
6:09 large animal would do. But camels aren't
6:11 reasonable. They're camels. So, instead,
6:13 they rock a thick, shaggy coat that
6:15 would make a yak jealous. But here's the
6:17 genius part. It's not actually keeping
6:19 heat in. It's keeping heat out. You see,
6:21 the fur works like the world's best
6:23 thermos, except instead of keeping your
6:25 coffee hot, keeps the camel's body cool.
6:27 And it's so effective that if you shave
6:29 a camel, they have to sweat 50% more
6:31 just to avoid overheating. And then on
6:33 top of that, in the summer, the fur even
6:35 changes to a lighter color to reflect
6:38 more sunlight. Then there are the legs.
6:40 As you can probably see, camel legs are
6:42 comedically long. But this isn't an
6:43 aesthetic flaw. It's a functional
6:44 feature because when the ground
6:48 temperature hits 70° C or 158 degrees
6:49 Fahrenheit, hot enough to literally cook
6:51 an egg, having your body farther from
6:53 the sand can mean the difference between
6:56 survival, and becoming a well fried egg.
6:57 But my favorite adaptation is what
6:59 scientists call the pedestal, which kind
7:00 of works like how you'd expect with a
7:02 name like that. You see, when camels lie
7:04 down, they don't just flop under the
7:06 sand like your uncle at the beach. They
7:07 instead have this thick hardened pad on
7:09 their chest that props their body up,
7:11 creating an air gap underneath, allowing
7:13 air to circulate under the body and
7:15 cooling them down without any effort.
7:16 But surviving in the desert isn't just
7:18 about what you're wearing. It's also
7:20 about what you eat, or rather can eat.
7:22 So, let me ask you this. Do you know
7:23 what grows in the desert? Well, the
7:25 answer here is not much. And what does
7:28 grow usually comes with thorns, spines,
7:30 needles, or other plant-based defense
7:32 systems that basically say, "Do not eat
7:34 me." And yet, camels eat them anyway.
7:36 And I'm not talking about delicately
7:38 nibbling around the best parts. I'm
7:39 talking about straight up crunching
7:40 through thorny branches like their
7:43 potato chips. I mean, to put this into
7:45 perspective, acacia trees, which have
7:46 thorns that can puncture literal car
7:48 tires, are basically camel salad. And
7:50 their pallet itself is basically
7:52 non-existent. At least it would seem so,
7:54 seeing that they'll eat dry woody shrubs
7:55 that have the nutritional value of
7:57 cardboard and the texture of fiberglass
7:59 insulation. But this all begs the
8:01 question of how. And the answer is more
8:03 simple than what you might think, which
8:04 is that their mouths and stomachs, are
8:07 basically biological tanks. The inside
8:08 of their mouth is lined with thick
8:10 cone-shaped pap, which kind of look like
8:12 hundreds of fleshy spikes that are tough
8:14 enough to withstand the thorns, as well
8:16 as help direct them down in a vertical
8:18 orientation to help avoid getting them
8:19 stuck anywhere. And then their lips are
8:21 split and extremely mobile, letting them
8:23 pick around the worst spines with
8:24 surprising delicacy if they really want
8:27 to. But when they don't want to, crunch
8:29 crunch desert salad. And speaking of
8:31 crunchy stuff, living in the desert
8:33 means sand everywhere. And to get around
8:34 sand getting in their sensitive parts,
8:36 camels also had to evolve built-in
8:39 safety goggles. And by safety goggles, I
8:41 mean very long eyelashes and uh three
8:44 eyelids. Yeah, three. And the third one
8:46 is transparent and sweeps across the eye
8:47 horizontally, kind of like a windshield
8:49 wiper. And to make it even more OP,
8:51 during sandstorms, they can literally
8:53 just close the third eyelid and still
8:55 see where they're going. And their
8:56 nostrils are somehow even more
8:58 impressive. Not only can they close them
9:00 completely to keep sand out, which I
9:01 love to see you try without using your
9:03 hands, but the inside is also designed
9:05 like a maze of twisted passages. And
9:07 this does two things. One, it helps
9:10 filter out sand. And two, it also acts
9:11 like a moisture reclamation system,
9:13 which is a lot more important than it
9:14 might sound. But we'll get to that
9:16 particular piece of weirdness in a
9:18 minute. Now, if you've ever been to a
9:20 beach, you'll know that walking on sand
9:22 is exhausting. Every step sinks, your
9:24 feet shift, and ultimately use twice the
9:26 amount of energy to go half the
9:27 distance. And don't even get me started
9:29 on walking uphill on dunes, which is
9:31 probably the closest thing to nature's
9:33 treadmill. But camels were rightfully
9:36 like, yeah, nah. And solve this problem
9:37 by evolving what are essentially
9:39 biological snowshoes, or rather sand
9:42 shoes. You see, their feet aren't hooves
9:44 in their traditional sense, despite what
9:46 they might look like. Instead, they have
9:49 two-toed feet with soft pads underneath.
9:51 And these broad, thick, fatty pads under
9:53 the feet spread out slightly when they
9:54 walk, distributing their weight over a
9:56 larger area, as well as being thick
9:58 enough to handle the scorching soft
10:00 sand. And the design is so effective
10:01 that engineers have actually studied
10:03 them to create better rover tires for
10:05 future missions to the moon. But just
10:07 like rovers, camels are not just
10:09 impressive on the outside, but also
10:10 under the hood. And this is where they
10:13 go from well adapted to downright weird.
10:14 Let's start with our blood. You know how
10:16 your blood cells are nice round discs
10:18 like tiny frisbes floating through your
10:20 veins? Well, camel red blood cells
10:21 obviously thought that was too
10:23 mainstream and so their blood cells are
10:25 oval. Now, this might not sound like a
10:27 big deal, but imagine trying to push
10:28 marbles through a straw versus pushing
10:30 elongated pills. When a camel gets
10:32 dehydrated, and we're talking scorched
10:34 earth, tumble weed blowing through your
10:36 veins type of dehydrated, their blood
10:38 becomes much thicker due to the lower
10:40 water content. And in any other mammal,
10:42 these round blood cells would jam up
10:44 like rush hour traffic, causing clots,
10:46 strokes, and potential death. But oval
10:48 cells, well, they just slide on through
10:50 like they're on a water slide, even with
10:52 the added viscosity of the blood. But
10:54 obviously, like any self-respecting
10:56 hydrohomie, even though they can deal
10:58 with dehydration, they're still big fans
11:00 of water. Massive fans, in fact. And
11:02 when these guys actually find water,
11:04 let's just say they get a bit excited
11:06 because the camel will walk up to a
11:08 water source and chug it. And I mean
11:11 chug, drinking up to 114 L or 30 gallons
11:13 in a single session. Which to put that
11:14 into perspective is like drinking
11:16 basically a bathtub amount of water in
11:18 one go. And in literally any other
11:19 mammal, this would cause what's called
11:22 water intoxication. Your blood sodium
11:23 level would dilute so fast that your
11:25 cells would swell like water balloons
11:27 trying to balance out the hypotonia,
11:28 which in turn would cause your brain to
11:31 literally swell and uh bad stuff to
11:33 happen. But with camels, yeah, they just
11:34 kind of burp and walk away like nothing
11:37 happened. But honestly, that's nothing.
11:38 Remember when I mentioned their nostrils
11:41 or moisture reclamation systems? Well,
11:43 let's talk about that. Now, for you,
11:45 every time you exhale, you lose water
11:46 vapor. It's why you can see your breath
11:48 on cold days, with it literally being
11:50 your body's water floating away. And in
11:52 the desert, where water is scarcer than
11:54 a PlayStation 5 at launch, losing
11:56 moisture with every breath is basically
11:58 a death sentence. But camels, following
12:00 typical camel fashion, have fixed this.
12:02 The inside of their nose is filled with
12:04 complex turbineate bones, creating
12:06 essentially a labyrinth of passages. And
12:08 when they exhale, the warm, moist air
12:09 from their lungs hits these cooler
12:11 surfaces, which in turn causes water
12:13 vapor to condense, kind of like what
12:14 happens when you breathe on a cold
12:16 window, which thus allows the water to
12:19 stay within the camel's body. And this
12:20 might not sound all that impressive, but
12:22 wait until you hear the fact that this
12:23 system is so efficient that the camel
12:25 breath basically comes out completely
12:27 dry with them reclaiming about 60% of
12:29 the moisture from every exhale, helping
12:31 to keep them hydrated. And so obviously
12:33 staying hydrated would help not only
12:34 with circulating your blood and
12:37 breathing, but also keeps you well
12:39 cooler. But honestly, being unbelievably
12:42 hot isn't really a problem for camels,
12:43 as camel body temperature can swing by
12:47 6° C or 11° F without problem. Now, your
12:50 body temperature varies by about 1° C on
12:53 a normal day. If it swings 2° C, you're
12:56 sick. If it swings 4° C, you're in the
12:59 hospital. If it swings 6° C, yeah,
13:01 you're dead. But for camels, that's just
13:03 another Tuesday. During the cool desert
13:05 night, their body temperature drops to
13:09 about 34° C or 93° F. And as the day
13:10 heats up, instead of immediately
13:12 starting to sweat and lose precious
13:14 water, they just, well, let their body
13:17 temperature rise and rise and rise. And
13:19 by the afternoon, they're running at 40°
13:22 C or 104° F, a temperature that would
13:24 have most mammals in heat stroke. But
13:26 here's the genius part. By letting their
13:28 body heat up, they delay sweating for
13:30 hours. And while other animals are
13:32 dumping water from sunrise, camels don't
13:34 even start sweating until ambient
13:37 temperatures reach around 49° C or 120°
13:40 F. And when they do finally sweat, it
13:41 evaporates at the skin level rather than
13:44 at the surface of the coat. Meaning that
13:45 it's the body heat that's getting wicked
13:47 away as opposed to the outside air's
13:49 heat. And the energy savings of all
13:51 these mechanisms are insane. One study
13:53 in Australia found that in the desert
13:54 where the days reached a temperature of
13:59 42° C or 107° F, cattle would lose about
14:01 7 to 8% of their body water per day,
14:04 while camels only lost 1 to 2%. And in a
14:06 situation with no water, the cattle died
14:08 within 4 days, while camels made it to
14:11 20. And speaking of water conservation,
14:12 saving water doesn't just happen through
14:14 its front end, but also the back end.
14:17 You see, camel pee isn't pee in any
14:19 sense that we understand it. It's more
14:21 uh akin to syrup. And this is because
14:22 their kidneys are so incredibly
14:24 efficient at reclaiming water, causing
14:26 it to become much thicker than regular.
14:28 But the real party trick is the poop, as
14:30 camel poop comes out so dry that you can
14:32 burn it immediately. In fact, Bedawin
14:34 people have been using fresh camel dung
14:36 as cooking fuel for hundreds of years.
14:38 But just when you thought we were done
14:39 with the weird internal stuff, let me
14:42 introduce you to camel antibodies. Now,
14:44 normal mamalian antibodies are Y-shaped
14:46 molecules made of two heavy chains and
14:48 two light chains. And they work great.
14:50 In fact, they've been working great for
14:52 hundreds of millions of years, having
14:54 evolved in our earliest ancestors. But
14:56 camels, being camels, looked at this
14:58 perfectly functional system and decided
15:00 to innovate anyway. And about 25 million
15:02 years ago, way before they're even
15:04 thinking about deserts, camels, well,
15:06 the ancestors to camels evolved a second
15:08 type of antibbody that nearly everyone
15:10 else has missed. And these are called
15:13 heavy chain only antibodies or HCABs for
15:16 short. And they're just wrong with them
15:17 missing the light chains I mentioned
15:20 entirely. But these weird antibodies can
15:21 actually slip into cracks and crevices
15:23 on viruses and bacteria that normal
15:25 antibodies can't reach. And they're so
15:27 good at their job that scientists are
15:29 now studying them for human medicine. I
15:30 mean, there are even biotech companies
15:32 worth billions of dollars based entirely
15:35 on reverse engineering camel antibodies.
15:37 Let that sink in. Now, at this point,
15:38 you might have realized there's one very
15:40 crucial thing that I have not yet talked
15:42 about. So, let me address the elephant,
15:45 well, camel in the room, the hump. The
15:47 thing everyone quote unquote knows about
15:50 camels. I mean, people will proudly say
15:52 with full confidence at parties, camels
15:53 store water in their humps. That's how
15:55 they survive in the desert. yada yada
15:58 yada. But that is wrong, wrong, and
16:00 wrong. If you slice open a camel hump,
16:02 which please don't, you won't find a
16:04 water balloon, a water tank, or really
16:06 anything liquid at all. What you'll find
16:10 instead is fat. Just fat. Up to 36 kg or
16:12 80 lbs of fat to be precise. And now, if
16:14 you corrected that person who so
16:15 confidently said that the humps store
16:17 water, they might respond with something
16:18 like, "But that doesn't make any sense.
16:20 Why would you store fat in the desert?
16:22 You need water." And that's where they'd
16:24 be wrong again. Because camels are
16:26 playing 40 chess while everyone else is
16:28 playing checkers. You see, their fatty
16:29 hump is incredibly useful for three
16:32 different reasons. One, fat packs more
16:33 than twice the calories per gram as
16:36 carbohydrates or protein. Meaning, it's
16:37 the most efficient way to store energy,
16:40 bar none. Two, when fat breaks down, it
16:43 actually produces water as a byproduct.
16:44 And for every kilogram of fat
16:47 metabolized, a camel gets about 1.1 L of
16:49 water. And then three, by concentrating
16:51 all their fat in one or two lumps in
16:52 their back, camels avoid having it
16:54 distributed under their skin where it
16:56 would act as insulation, which in turn
16:58 would only serve to make them hotter in
17:00 an already brutally hot environment. And
17:01 so when times are good and food is
17:03 plentiful, the hump stands tall and
17:05 firm. But when food is scarce, the hump
17:07 shrinks and eventually flops to the side
17:09 like a deflated balloon. It kind of acts
17:11 like a visible fuel gauge, and you can
17:12 look at a camel and tell how well it's
17:15 been eating by its hump plumpness. Now,
17:16 with all this said, survival in the
17:18 desert, or really anywhere, isn't just
17:20 about pure survival in the sense of my
17:22 survival. It's also about the survival
17:24 of the species. And in order to
17:26 guarantee that, you need to reproduce.
17:28 And of course, in typical camel fashion,
17:30 this just cannot be a normal process.
17:32 So, without any further ado, let me
17:35 introduce you to the Dola. Now, I won't
17:36 stand here and slander all camels at
17:38 this part. So, let me first clarify that
17:40 the dola is thankfully only found in
17:42 male dramadary camels, so not the
17:44 bactranine. But these camels are
17:46 weirdos. And during mating season, when
17:48 they want to impress the ladies, they
17:50 inflate their dola and push it out of
17:52 their mouth, which let me be clear, they
17:53 basically turn their throat inside out
17:55 and blow it up like a giant pink balloon
17:57 that hangs out the side of their mouth.
17:58 And then at the same time, to make it
18:00 that much more appealing, they make
18:02 horrible gurgling sounds that sound like
18:03 the cross between some Jurassic Park
18:10 So, in other words, it is without
18:11 question one of the most disturbing
18:13 things you'll ever see a mammal do
18:16 voluntarily. And yet, female camels love
18:18 it. Apparently, the bigger and grosser
18:20 the dola, the more attractive the male,
18:23 probably. But hey, who am I to judge?
18:25 But of course, that's not all. It just
18:27 couldn't be, as the males will also
18:29 urinate on their own tails and whip them
18:31 around to spread that oh so irresistible
18:33 scent. And then at the same time, they
18:35 also gurgle copious amounts of saliva
18:36 causing them to foam at the mouth like
18:39 they have rabies. But again, apparently
18:41 this is all super attractive. And so
18:44 with a mating ritual so uh well unique,
18:45 you might not be surprised to hear that
18:47 they're also a little bit off in the
18:49 head. Specifically, they're jerks. And
18:52 not in a cute grumpy cat way, but more
18:54 in a I will try to bite your face off
18:56 and feel nothing kind of way. And these
18:58 guys are notorious for being badteered
19:00 and also holding grudges. with there
19:02 being at least one story of a camel who
19:03 literally bit his owner's head off after
19:05 he left the camel tied out in the heat
19:07 the whole day. And if getting your head
19:09 potentially bit off wasn't bad enough,
19:11 just like their cousins, the llama, they
19:13 spit. And I don't mean a little pati.
19:15 And when a camel spits, it's uh more
19:18 like vomiting on you with spit, as it's
19:20 not just saliva. It's also partially
19:22 digested whatever the heck they ate
19:24 mixed with stomach acid. Oh, and uh they
19:27 also aim for the face. But with all this
19:29 said, despite being grumpy, vengeful,
19:31 and prone to spitting stomach acid,
19:32 camels have been one of the most
19:34 important animals in human history.
19:35 We're talking empire building
19:37 worldchanging levels of important. I
19:39 mean, in some sense, the domestication
19:41 of camels essentially rewrote the map of
19:42 the ancient world. They became key
19:44 animals for transportation, not only for
19:46 personal purposes, but also for trade
19:48 purposes. And they're a mainstay for
19:50 transportation on the Silk Road, which
19:51 is, you know, perhaps the most
19:52 influential trade route in the entire
19:54 history of mankind. But they weren't
19:56 just useful for trade. Camels were also
19:58 weapons of war. And I don't mean the
20:00 typical cavalry charge way. I more mean
20:03 the psychological warfare way. You see,
20:05 horses, those refined, oh so noble
20:07 animals, are absolutely terrified of
20:10 camels. The smell, the noise, the shape,
20:12 perhaps the dola. Horses want nothing to
20:14 do with them. And some ancient armies
20:16 figured this out and started putting
20:17 camels at the front of their battle
20:19 lines. For example, the Battle of
20:22 Thimbra in 547 BC was literally won by
20:24 Cyrus the Great due to him using camels
20:26 to freak out Crows's cavalry. And
20:28 besides getting people to places and
20:30 acting as the boogeyman for horses, they
20:32 also kept people alive. Literally. You
20:35 see, camel milk is valuable. Very
20:37 valuable. And why? Well, because in the
20:39 desert, camel milk is basically like a
20:41 superfood that makes regular milk look
20:43 like white water. First off, it's got
20:45 three times the vitamin C of cow milk.
20:47 And in the desert where fresh fruits and
20:49 vegetables are about as common as Wi-Fi
20:52 signals, this is huge as it can both
20:54 prevent and treat scurvy. And it also
20:56 doesn't curdle easily, so it stays fresh
20:58 for longer in hot conditions. And here's
21:00 the real wild part. Camel contains
21:02 unique proteins with antimicrobial
21:04 properties. And some studies even
21:05 suggest it can help with diabetes and
21:07 autoimmune disorders. Now, is the
21:10 science 100% conclusive? Not yet. But
21:12 it's obviously conclusive enough that
21:13 companies are pouring millions and
21:15 making millions from both selling camel
21:17 milk and the adjacent research because
21:19 the preliminary results are that
21:21 promising. Oh, and uh people with
21:23 lactose intolerance can also drink camel
21:24 milk without problems as the proteins
21:26 are structured differently than cow milk
21:28 and they also have less lactose. The
21:30 betawin even have a saying water is the
21:33 soul but camel milk is life. And they
21:34 weren't exaggerating with having many
21:36 documented cases of people surviving for
21:38 weeks on nothing but camel milk. And uh
21:41 to that I say try doing that with cow
21:43 milk and see how you feel. So with all
21:45 these adaptations and survival skills,
21:46 you would think that camels would be
21:48 thriving everywhere. And you'd be right.
21:50 Too right. In fact, let me tell you
21:53 about Australia's dirty little secret.
21:55 In the 1840s, British colonists had a
21:57 brilliant idea. Their thought process
21:58 kind of went like this. Australia is
22:01 basically a desert. Camels love deserts.
22:03 And so Australia plus camel is obviously
22:06 a great mix. And so they imported camels
22:07 from Afghanistan to help explore and
22:09 develop the outback. And the camels,
22:11 unsurprisingly, did great. They helped
22:12 with transport, made trade more
22:14 lucrative, and just generally helped
22:15 with everything you might need in a
22:18 desert. But then cars were invented, and
22:21 suddenly nobody needed camels anymore.
22:22 So what did they do? Well, in typical
22:25 human fashion, they just uh let them go
22:27 into the wild. And let me just specify,
22:30 into the Australian wild, which is a a
22:31 continent with no natural predators for
22:34 large mammals and uh lots of desert. So,
22:36 what could possibly go wrong? And if you
22:37 were thinking everything, you'd be
22:40 right. Because those released camels did
22:42 not die. They did not even struggle.
22:44 Honestly, it was probably more like they
22:45 looked at the Australian outback and
22:47 said, "Finally, a desert that
22:49 understands us." Because as soon as they
22:51 were set loose, they started breeding
22:54 and breeding and breeding. And by 2008,
22:57 there were over 1 million feral camels
22:59 roaming Australia, with the population
23:01 doubling every 8 years. And they weren't
23:02 content to just hang around the deep
23:04 desert either. Feral camels were
23:06 destroying water sources, breaking into
23:08 towns, causing traffic accidents, and
23:10 generally being a massive ecological
23:12 disaster. They destroy water holes,
23:14 leaving native animals to die. And
23:15 they'd eat native plants to decimation.
23:17 And so all of this was obviously a big
23:19 problem, and the Australian government
23:20 eventually had to authorize massive
23:22 coals. And when I say massive coals,
23:24 we're talking military-style operations
23:26 with helicopters and sharpshooters. And
23:29 between 2009 and 2013, they killed
23:32 160,000 camels from helicopters. That
23:34 is, it was basically as close as you can
23:36 get to a camel apocalypse. But remember
23:38 what I said about them holding grudges?
23:40 Well, there are still hundreds of
23:41 thousands of them out there, and they're
23:43 likely just waiting, planning their
23:46 revenge. Just kidding, probably. But
23:48 honestly, the irony is hilarious in the
23:50 worst way. An animal from North America,
23:52 perfected in Asia and Africa, is now an
23:55 invasive species destroying Australia.
23:57 It's like biological musical chairs,
23:59 except uh everyone loses. But where does
24:01 this leave camels today? Well, if you've
24:03 been following, it's complicated.
24:05 Domestic camels are doing just fine.
24:07 There are approximately over 35 million
24:09 of them worldwide, with camels still
24:10 being essential for life in many parts
24:13 of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
24:15 But remember those wild bactrun camels I
24:16 mentioned earlier, the ones that can
24:19 drink salt water? Well, they are in
24:20 serious trouble. There are only about
24:23 950 left in the wild, making them one of
24:24 the most endangered large mammals on
24:26 Earth. They're getting squeezed by
24:28 mining, hunting, and habitat loss. With
24:30 even wolf attacks increasing as their
24:32 preferred prey disappears. And here's
24:34 the real kicker. These guys might be the
24:36 only true wild camels left. Every other
24:38 camel on Earth descends from domestic
24:40 stock. And so, these saltwater drinking
24:42 weirdos in the Gobi Desert might be our
24:44 only window into what camels were like
24:46 before humans got involved. and we're
24:48 letting them disappear because nobody
24:50 wants to save a fugly animal that spits.
24:51 Which is why I'm dropping a link to the
24:53 Wild Camel Protection Foundation, a
24:55 conservation group, which by the way was
24:57 literally co-founded with Jane Goodall,
24:59 who if you didn't know, fundamentally
25:01 changed primate conservation on our
25:03 planet. So consider donating to this
25:04 group if you'd like to help. But on the
25:06 bright side, or perhaps not so bright
25:08 side for everyone else, climate change
25:10 is making more of the world camel
25:11 friendly. As temperatures rise and
25:14 rainfall patterns shift, marginal lands
25:15 that once supported cattle are becoming
25:18 too harsh. But for camels, just another
25:20 Tuesday. And we're already seeing in
25:21 certain parts of Africa that
25:23 pastoralists are switching from cattle
25:25 to camels as the weather becomes more
25:26 severe. Which makes a lot of sense
25:28 seeing that camels need less water, eat
25:30 plants that cattle won't touch, and can
25:32 travel farther to find food. So, what's
25:34 the takeaway from all this camel
25:35 madness? Well, probably the biggest
25:37 thing is that specialization can be a
25:39 type of superpower. I mean, camels
25:41 aren't good at everything. For one,
25:42 they're terrible at being normal
25:44 mammals, but they're amazing at being
25:46 desert ones. So, the next time someone
25:48 mentions camels, don't think of them as
25:50 some boring desert animals with water
25:52 humps. Think of them as what they truly
25:55 are. Doablowing, antibody innovating,
25:57 water recycling, revenge plotting, acid
25:59 spitting survivors that have turned
26:00 living in the most brutal places on
26:03 Earth into just another Tuesday. They're
26:05 not majestic. They're not beautiful.
26:07 They probably smell and definitely have
26:08 the personality of a DMV employee on a
26:10 Monday. But when the world ends and
26:12 we're all fighting over the last drops
26:13 of water, the camels will be standing
26:15 there chewing their cud, making weird
26:17 noises with their body temperatures
26:19 drifting lazily between hypothermia and
26:21 heat stroke, just waiting to spit on our
26:24 graves, probably. So maybe the real
26:26 question isn't really how did camels get
26:28 so weird, but rather why everything else
26:30 stayed so normal. I mean, in a universe
26:32 that's mostly empty space and exploding
26:34 stars, and on a planet that's had at
26:36 least five mass extinctions and has many
26:38 ice ages, being a normal mammal seems
26:40 like the weird choice. Now, yes, they
26:42 turn their blood cells into the wrong
26:44 shape, put their fat in a backpack, and
26:45 call it a day, and breathe their own
26:47 water while peeing syrup, but hey, it's
26:49 working. And in the game of life,
26:51 considering our climatic trends, they're
26:53 probably winning. Oh, and uh last fun
26:55 fact, only 14% of you are subscribed.
26:57 So, if you enjoyed the video, consider
26:58 hitting that sub button. And unlike
27:00 camels, I promise not to spit stomach
27:02 acid on you or blow my soft pallet in
27:04 your direction. Well, as long as you hit
27:06 the sub button, that is. Anyways, thanks
