How are camels able to go without water for so long?
They have design features that help them conserve it. One of the most important is that their body temperature can go way up during the day without harming them–other mammals have to use a lot of evaporating perspiration as a water coolant to get rid of that heat, but camels just save the excess heat for use during the cold desert nights. Their kidneys are also designed to produce highly concentrated urine and conserve water, unlike those of almost all other mammals. Their digestive systems not only take water out of their food, but since water is one of the breakdown products of carbohydrate digestion, it stays in their blood rather than being excreted the way our kidneys do. The hump represents stored food, not stored water. However, as the fat in their humps is used for energy, it turns into carbon dioxide and water. One breed of North African camels doesn’t drink at all during the dry season–its metabolism somehow changes over annually–and if it’s offered water during that seaso
