Camels, known as "boats in the desert", are famous for their thirst and heat tolerance. They can walk in the hot desert without drinking water for several days and rarely sweat. Sweating is a dilemma for animals in the desert, because sweating can dissipate heat, but it also loses water. The camel's hump skillfully solves this problem. It is generally believed that the hump may store water, but it actually stores fat. Camels concentrate subcutaneous fat that should be scattered all over their bodies on the hump of their backs. There is no fat under the skin, so it is easy to dissipate heat without sweating. When you are hungry, you can convert the fat in the hump into energy. When there is no water to drink for a long time, you can even turn some fat into liquid. So a "thin" camel should refer to a camel with a hump-like dry flat skin.
Camels have two towering "meat saddles" on their backs. Hump is the nutrition bank of camel, which is connected with back muscles and consists of rich colloidal fat. The camel's hump weighs about 40 kilograms. Hump is a rare delicacy in China's traditional recipes. Humps also have medicinal functions. Hump is sweet and warm, and has the effects of moistening dryness, expelling wind, promoting blood circulation and reducing swelling.
For nomadic people in desert areas, camels are as important as horses. There are two kinds of camels: Arabian dromedary and summer dromedary; The former adapts to the hot desert environment, while the latter adapts to the cold desert environment. Both kinds of camels can live in areas where even donkeys will starve to death, and they can walk for weeks without eating or drinking by relying on the fat stored in the hump and the water stored in the multi-cavity stomach. It is not clear when and where camels were first domesticated, but by 1000 BC, the transportation across the desert areas of Central Asia and the Middle East had completely relied on this "desert boat".