So ... as camels get dehydrated, do their humps shrink?

Question

I've always wondered this. It would seem that they should shrink as their water stores are depleted, but is there some kind of underlying structure that keeps the hump's shape whether the camel is dehydrated or replenished?

Answer 1

They flop over!

Answer 2

It is under the hump that the camel has a fat reseve which breaks down when they get dehydrated but the hump itself is formed out of bone - so there will not be any situation like the camel losing its hump once the sack inside is broken down. The shape still retains though there might be a little skinny around the hump :)

Answer 3

As perdendos said, the hump does not store water. It stores fat for the camel to use for energy when its in the desert away from decent food sources for long periods of time.

So if the camel was starving, then yes the hump would shrink, but dehydratiion would only make it shrink if the camel died and the scavengers and bacteria and everything got to work.

Answer 4

No, and not because there is an underlying structure. Rather they do not store water in their humps at all! They are fat deposits and act as a reserve food supply when times are tough.

Answer 5

camels humps shrink but it is not because of dehydration but instead lack of food, camels use there humps to store food not water.and when they have gone several days without food they start to draw on what is in their humps and these slowly collapse over a period of days.

Answer 6

Ask for your entrée to become served on a bed of greens rather than a bed of pasta or mashed carrots.

Answer 7

Camels handle dehydration well. A camel can lose up to 40% of its weight in water before it is in trouble. A human who loses 12% of his body weight in water is dead. One of the things that enables a camel to do this may be due to their blood. The elliptical, or football-like, shape of a camel's blood cells allow them to pass by one another even when their blood gets thicker with dehydration. A human's rounder blood cells are more likely to get caught in bloodstream traffic jams.

So let's say you and your camel are dehydrated after days in the desert. If you are in a chugging contest with a camel, you will lose. A camel can drink 28 gallons (106 liters) of water at one time. Imagine sitting down and drinking the amount of liquid contained in 56 cartons of milk. Camels have been known to drink 45 gallons (170 liters) in one 24 hour period. That's more than twice the liquid that a standard car gas tank holds. And they drink at a rate of 2.5-7 gallons/minute (10-27 liters/minute).

Answer 8

I do not know. They do turn the fat in their humps into water in times of dehydration. All water is " stored " in the blood, though. You are going to have to dig deep, on this one.

Answer 9

The hump is made of fat and when that fat is metabolized, water is produced. You cant "tap" a hump to get water out if it, it isnt stored in typical liquid form, its transformed into tissue.

Answer 10

They don't really shrink but start to flop over, at least on the 2 humped ones.

Answer 11

Yes