Camels know how to spit - even children know about it. A funny feature of the animal was captured in films, for example, in “Gentlemen of Fortune”, it is mentioned in children's poems and encyclopedias. But why does this animal behave in this way? The whole body of a camel is aimed at saving, retaining moisture, but at the same time he spits, spending it, it would seem, completely thoughtlessly. How could nature allow this to happen?

It turns out that the strange behavior of a desert animal is completely no coincidence. Having understood the details of the question, you can understand why they spit.

Camel digestion

Camels are mammals, ruminant herbivores. They are really well adapted to hot and dry climates, this applies to both varieties that exist today. Camels are two-humped, which are also called Bactrian, and one-humped - Arabians, or Dromedars. Today, there are also artificially bred mestizos of these two species. All of them are perfectly adapted to dryness and lack of food, their digestive system is the key to survival in an unfavorable climate.

A camel knows how to store water - the reserve, which is contained in the body after a good watering, lasts for 1.5 - 2 weeks. As soon as a camel gets to a watering place, he can drink 6-7 buckets of water at a time, and it will be completely absorbed by the body, and will not go into the hump - this is a myth.In the hump, a camel wears only fat reserves for the hunger period. The accumulation of water occurs in the blood, and its evaporation and excretion by the body is minimized due to many protective mechanisms.

Interesting fact: even the moisture evaporated by breathing comes back, flowing down the nasolabial folds into the oral cavity. Camels don’t know how to sweat, only a minimum of moisture comes out with feces.

Protective mechanisms allow the camel to eat dry thorns, a multi-chamber stomach successfully digests such food. In the rumen, mesh, and other digestive organs of a camel there is no mucous membrane; it is found only in the abomasum. The process of fermentation of food and digestion is continuous, the camel chews food many times, belching it, and such a lump of semi-digested food, saliva and digestive juices is almost constantly in his mouth. It is to them that he spits - this is a very fetid and unpleasant mass.

Reasons for a camel to spit

Occasionally, a food lump in the mouth is too large. In this case, a camel can spit without aiming at anyone, but this rarely happens. Usually spitting is done intentionally, in a specific goal, which is struck with amazing accuracy. Especially males spit during the mating season. They reach maturity by 3-5 years, and in the winter they participate in mating games. They become aggressive and excitable, inflate large bubbles of saliva. Competing for the female, males can fight, bite, spit.

Also, spitting is used for self-defense, protection of cubs. In fact, camels in the natural environment have no obvious enemies, but camels can be attacked by wolves. Accurate spitting with fetid mixture is an effective means of defense. A stunned, disoriented predator itself becomes a target for the aggression of camels that successfully trample enemies with their feet, bite.

People rarely get camel spitting, but it happens too. Being domesticated, these animals are strongly attached to people, tend to obey them, especially the owner. Usually those people who are not familiar to the animal become victims of spitting, these are primarily tourists. A camel can spit if you make threatening gestures in his direction, tease him, scream.

This behavior should be avoided, since saliva with food burps has an extremely unpleasant odor, it sticks very strongly, and it is difficult to wash it. And the volumes of the substance to be spit out may be such that spitting will cling to the entire upper part of the human body. In addition, camel aggression may not end in spitting alone, the animal can attack by biting behind its head or trying to crush its body weight.

A camel spit is a defensive reaction, a way to stun an adversary before a direct attack, or to discourage him from attacking. This behavior works great, few people want to be spat upon by fetid masses of saliva, gastric juice and semi-digested food.