It is a dry, hot, day in the desert. There is no water in sight. The wind is thick with sand, and the dunes continually shift underfoot. Yet these conditions; which would spell death for most mammals; prove no problem for the camel.

This tolerance is made possible through a number of incredibly specific features possessed by the camel. It has extra-long lashes to protect its eyes from airborne sand, sensitive muscles in the nostrils close enough to protect its lungs, wide pads on its feet make walking on sand easier and a thick coat of hair protects the camel from both the midday sun and cold desert night temperatures.

It is the camel’s ability to survive for long periods without water (up to several weeks if leafy plants are available), and its “hump” for which it is best known. Arabian camels usually have a single hump, while Bactrian camels from central Asia have two. It was once assumed the camel stored water in its hump. However, the hump, composed of connective tissue overlying the backbone, is where the camel stores fat. A camel may store up to 45 kilograms (100 pounds) in the hump or humps, drawing on this stored food when feed is scarce during a long journey.

The camel can amazingly survive without food and water for eight days at a temperature of 50°C. If forced to go without water, the camel uses three main mechanisms to survive when others would perish.

1. By concentrating its urine more, it excretes less water in it.
2. The camel has a large range of body temperature, and does not begin to sweat freely until it reaches 41°C (105°F), at which temperature a person would normally be very sick! While our internal temperature remains constant (in the absence of fever) at around 37°C (98.6°F), the camel can “cool off” overnight. It starts the day with a body temperature of only 34°C (93°F), and so it takes till nearly midday to heat up to 41°C, at which it starts to sweat. By this time, the cooling processes of other mammals, though efficient, would have already caused large losses of water.
3. When most mammals are forced to go without water, their blood becomes thicker as a result of moisture loss (which becomes fatal if this moisture is not replaced). But water lost by the camel is replaced by water drawn from other body tissues. This lost water, which can be up to a quarter of its body weight, can be rapidly replaced. Camels can drink more than 95 litres (25 U.S. gallons) of water in 10 minutes which rapidly restores their dehydrated tissues.

The camel and its specialised equipment highlight the incredible design features which evolutionists must explain as the result of random mutations selected by the environment. The camel today is perfectly adapted to its unique desert environment, and it is hard to see how all the features it requires — long eyelashes, thick hair, wide padded feet, fat storage in the hump and sophisticated body temperature mechanisms — could have come by a gradual evolutionary process.

Categories: Animals