干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The dromedary’s general morphology is odd enough to have intrigued anatomists for a long time. With its characteristic hump, endlessly long neck and head held disdainfully high, for all the world like an alien beast placed on a pedestal, it deserves to be investigated for the anatomical peculiarities that make it the largest animal that has adapted to desert conditions. Although there are a number of variations in its general morphology that arise from differences in race, its anatomical plasticity is notably less spectacular than in other domesticated species. The fact that the dromedary has become ecologically specialised to exist in an arid biotope probably contributes to this low variability, unlike that of other species, like cattle, whose dissemination across very different ecosystems has brought them into virtually every environment on the planet.