I believe that everyone is familiar with cacti. Although they look very ordinary, they are covered with thorns, and the lethality is not small. But it is one of the food of camels in the desert.

In documentaries, it is often seen that camels are chewing thorny cactus, which is very shocking. Don’t camels hurt? The same flesh and blood, why can a camel chew these thorny cactus directly? They still eat with relish, do they really not feel pain?

Camel's Alien-Like Mouth

Why can camels eat cacti? Of course it has something to do with their mouth and digestive system. First of all, the camel's mouth is very powerful, especially its special lips, which can flexibly turn food to adjust the direction, which is the flexibility of the camel's mouth. Then their tongues are big enough to wrap the entire cactus, which can greatly reduce the damage of the thorns to the mouth.

The camel's mouth resembles the shape of the alien's mouth in the movie, and it is covered with long and dense papillae. Although these papillae grow in the mouth, its material is as hard as our nails. There is also a "meat ball" in the mouth of the male camel, which is very interesting. Every time they come into estrus, they will inflate their tongues, and then spit them out of their mouths, which looks like the jelly ice cream we usually eat.

In the eyes of human beings, this bulging meat ball is spit out of the mouth, not to mention disgusting, and it looks very unattractive, but female camels may have a heavy mouth, and the "bigger" they are, the more they like it. I couldn't help rushing to have a baby camel with it. In this way, the same polygamous camel may mate with 30-40 females and reproduce.

When a camel eats a cactus, the hard papillae in its mouth act like fingers, flexibly rotating some hard thorns on the cactus and other plants into a vertical direction, because swallowing in a horizontal direction will scratch the throat, so that they can swallow It won't get stuck or scratch your throat and esophagus when you're moving.

camel's digestive system

After eating too much cactus, the camel’s stomach will inevitably digest some cactus thorns that have not been chewed, because camels, like most herbivores, have a signature skill, which is rumination. Then during the process of rumination, if a thorn comes up, wouldn't it scratch the esophagus and intestines? Of course not.

Camels have more than one stomach. In the first stomach of a camel, a large amount of mucus and gastric acid are secreted, and it is extremely hard. In the first stomach, the cactus will become very soft in the environment of a large amount of stomach acid, and will be automatically kneaded into balls.

When they feel hungry again or when they have nothing to do, they will regurgitate these balls into their mouths and chew them again. The thoroughly crushed food will be sent to the second stomach, and will be fully digested and become energy.

Because the desert where camels live is very arid, they have evolved a series of features to make full use of water resources as the environment changes, not only the stomach, the red blood cells of camelids are not generally round, but oval , such features allow them to absorb 200 liters of water in 15 minutes. Their kidneys are also unique, with elongated nephrons that make urine highly concentrated and feces thicker than those of other mammals.

Why do camels eat cactus

Although there are few plants in the desert, why are camels so obsessed with cacti? For camels, the most important thing in the desert is water, and of course food is also very important. It happens that the cactus in the desert contains a lot of juice, while other desert plants only have a small amount of water in the stems and leaves, so the cactus becomes a delicacy that can not only eat but also drink enough.

It is also extremely difficult for plants to survive in the desert. After all, water resources are an essential living condition for plants. Of course, plants do not exist to serve as food for herbivores, they also desire to survive, which leads to many plants Relying on evolution to fight against animals, among them, the spines of cactus can not only ensure that the water loss is slowed down, but also the main reason is to prevent being eaten.

The thorns of cactus have been overcome by the evolution of camels, but other plants will evolve to be very unpalatable, indigestible, smelly, and even release chemical weapons to protect themselves, so that animals will also educate their offspring over time, what is good Eating, what is not delicious, so in the current cognition of camels, those plants that have not been seen before will not be easily tried unless they are in a critical juncture, which leads to camels' obsession with cacti and hobbies.

Surviving in the desert is not easy, water is very important to any living thing, and camels are no exception. Camels will drink hundreds of catties every time they drink water, but with the harsh environment, desertification is getting worse and worse. Even camels with the title of "desert boat" will inevitably be unable to bear it, let alone other needs in the desert. The creatures that survive in the middle of the world show how powerful they are in the face of survival.