Whence
Dromedary (one-humped camel)
Animal

Where does Dromedary (one-humped camel) come from?

The dromedary, the one-humped camel, was first tamed in the south and south-east of the Arabian Peninsula. Its wild ancestors have long since died out, so today it lives only as a domestic or feral animal, across Africa, Asia and even Australia.

Tamed in Arabia

Wild dromedaries once lived on the Arabian Peninsula, and a dromedary jawbone dated to 8,200 BC has been found on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. A 2016 study compared ancient DNA from wild and early domestic camels with samples from 1,083 living ones. It found wild dromedaries from the south-east of the peninsula among the founders of the domestic herds. After the first taming, animals from wild populations that are now extinct kept joining the herds, a pattern the researchers call 'restocking from the wild'.

A body built for the desert

The famous hump stores fat, not water: it is fat bound together by fibrous tissue, which the camel breaks down for energy when food is scarce, so a hungry camel's hump leans over and droops. Water is saved in other ways. A dromedary can close its nostrils, its body temperature swings between 31 and 41.7 °C during the day so that it sweats less, and it can survive losing more than 30% of its body water. Afterwards it can drink more than 100 litres at one go.

Why people think of the Sahara

Camels are the very picture of the Sahara, and Africa now holds more than 80% of the world's dromedaries. But the dromedary was first tamed in Arabia. Archaeology and rock art show dromedaries in North Africa by 1500 BC at the latest, yet they were not widely used there until the Sahara grew drier. The first written record of them in North Africa comes from Julius Caesar's campaigns of 46 BC. After the Islamic conquest of North Africa, camels were imported in great numbers, and trade across the Sahara grew.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org ↗ · ilri.org ↗ · nottingham.ac.uk ↗ · animals.sandiegozoo.org ↗

More Animals

Siamese cat
Animal

Siamese cat

📍 Thailand (formerly Siam)

Siamese cats come from Thailand, once called Siam, where old manuscripts of 'Cat-Book Poems' describe them. In 1878 the American consul in Bangkok sent one, named Siam, to the White House as a gift for Lucy Hayes: the first documented Siamese in the US.

Icelandic horse
Animal

Icelandic horse

📍 Iceland

Icelandic horses descend from ponies brought by Norse settlers more than 1,000 years ago. Today no horse may be imported into Iceland, and one that leaves can never come back. Many can do an extra-smooth gait called the tölt.

Bengal cat
Animal

Bengal cat

📍 California, USA

Despite its name, the Bengal cat was created in the United States: breeder Jean Mill crossed a wild Asian leopard cat with a house cat in 1963 and founded the breed in California in the 1980s. 'Bengal' comes from the leopard cat's scientific name.

More from Asia

Jasmine tea
Drink

Jasmine tea

📍 Fuzhou, Fujian, China

Jasmine tea is tea, usually green, scented with fresh jasmine blossoms that are mixed with the leaves at night, just as the flowers open. The craft was perfected in Fuzhou in southeast China, nicknamed 'the City of Jasmine' since the Song dynasty.

Yogurt (the word)
Word

Yogurt (the word)

📍 Anatolia & Istanbul (Ottoman Turkey)

Yogurt comes from Ottoman Turkish yoğurt, built on a root meaning 'to thicken'. English was writing it 'yughurd' by the 1620s, and the spelling still wobbles between yogurt and yoghurt.

Maneki-neko (lucky cat figurine)
Invention

Maneki-neko (lucky cat figurine)

📍 Tokyo (Edo), Japan

It sits in shops all over the world, often Chinese ones, but the lucky cat comes from Edo, today's Tokyo, where the figurines were sold by the 1850s. Its raised paw isn't waving hello: it's the Japanese gesture for 'come here'.