Where does a camel store large supplies of water?

Camels do not store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue. Concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates.

Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Unlike other mammals, their red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This variation allows them to swell up to three times their original shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water. A 600 kg (1,300 lb) camel can drink 200 L (53 US gal) of water in three minutes. If a human did this, our red blood cells would burst.

Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C (93 °F) at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C (104 °F) by sunset, before they cool off at night again. In general, to compare between camels and the other livestock, camels lose only 1.3 liters of fluid intake every day while the other livestock lose 20 to 40 liters per day.

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89 Comments

Jack Kelly

My school teachers all lied to me

Barbara Hauck

Do Camels Really Store Water in Their Humps? If there's any body part that excels at retaining water, the award goes to the camel's kidneys and intestines. These organs are so efficient that a camel's urine comes out thick as syrup and their feces is so dry, it can fuel fires! A camel can survive seven days without water, but not because they are carrying large reserves inside their humps. They're able to avoid dehydration that would kill most other animals, thanks in large part to oval-shaped red blood cells (vs. the standard circular variety). As far as that hump goes, it's nothing more than a big mound of fat, though a useful one at that — the lump provides camels with the same amount of energy as three weeks of food. http://www.animalplanet.com/wild-animals/do-camels-really-store-water-in-their-humps/

Ramon Laygo Dolor

Now I'm questioning every single thing I learned in grade school

Dennis Long

They have a different opinion than the Animal planet... so much for Hump day!

Albert

So..... does that means it stores its fats in the humps?

Eileen Dunn

I remember reading that it wasn’t humps so went with stomach,still wrong but learned something.

Evelyn Bauc Hope Fairgrieve

Well why do the humps go flacid when it is thirsty?

Suraya Choudhury

I put Hump !

Andrew Allan

Lymph and blood are two different body fluids

Ronald Cufley

Krishna Chandra Singh Sanger, this strikes me as not being correct; there is plenty of carbon in fat with an atomic weight of 12 which must appear in the metabolic product of the fat usage.

Krishna Chandra Singh Sanger

The 'metabolic water' produced from the fat stored in the hump of a camel should also be taken into consideration. Metabolic water refers to water created inside a living organism through its metabolism, by oxidizing energy-containing substances in its food. Animal metabolism produces about 100 grams of water per 100 grams of fat.