Why can camels spit out meat balls from their mouths? What are these meat balls used for?

A dog cannot spit out ivory, which is an insult, and it means that a bad person cannot say good things. But camels do not eat meat, but they can spit out meat balls. Why is this? There are very few camels in most places in China, and there may not be many people who have seen this phenomenon, so many people may not believe it.

Now let’s take a picture to confirm this:

Now you believe it, right? It is impossible to photoshop such a GIF.

We all know that camels are herbivores and do not eat meat, so why do they have such a meat ball in their mouths? What is this meat ball?

There are various opinions on the Internet, some say it is a camel stomach

Camels are herbivores, and herbivores generally have multiple stomachs. Cows have four stomachs, and camels have three. The reason they have so many stomachs is that grass food has low nutritional value and is difficult to digest, so they have to eat a lot and it takes a long time to digest.

But these animals, whether wild or domestic, cannot eat all day long. They also have to avoid danger, work or rest. Therefore, they have to eat whole, swallowing it in big gulps and storing it in one of the largest stomachs - the rumen. When they stop eating, whether they are working or sleeping, they have to pour the grass out of their stomachs and put it back into their mouths to chew slowly.

Therefore, these animals are also called ruminants. Rumination means returning the semi-digested food eaten to the mouth to chew again and swallow it. In this way, we see cows, sheep, moose, chewing all day long, chewing with relish.

So, if the ball of flesh that the camel spits out of its mouth is one of its stomachs, then which stomach is it? Does it have to chew its own stomach? If it chews up this stomach, what will it use to hold the fodder? Therefore, this statement is unreasonable and wrong.

Some people say that what the camel spits out is its tongue.

Camels generally live in deserts and Gobi areas, which are dry and rainless, and are barren and have few plants. Camels feed on grass and shrubs, so they will eat anything green they see, even the dreaded cactus covered with thorns.

Camels that have lived in this harsh environment for a long time not only have good teeth, but also have hard thorns growing in their mouths. Therefore, dealing with thorny plants in the desert is a piece of cake for them.

Cacti and prickly pear are drought-tolerant plants that can survive in hot and water-scarce environments. Probably to prevent being attacked, they are covered with thorns, and anyone who touches them will be unlucky. But when they encounter the nemesis of camels, they can only be swallowed whole.

The tongue of a camel is also well-tested and is not afraid of these thorns. When eating thorny plants such as cacti, it also plays the role of stirring and pressing the thorns. The flesh ball sticking out of the camel's mouth is fresh and moist, and it doesn't look like it can handle cacti. Therefore, the flesh ball cannot be the tongue.

But the lump isn't actually the camel's tongue. So what is it?

It turns out that this is a weapon that the camel can show off.

But this weapon is useless to anyone except seducing female camels and dealing with rivals. In other words, this "meat ball" is only found in male camels, not female camels. It is neither a stomach nor a tongue, but a fleshy air sac growing on the upper jaw near the throat of male camels. It is usually like a small tumor stuck in the gap of the upper jaw, which does not affect chewing or swallowing.

During the mating season, male camels close their nostrils and exhale to push air into the sac, blowing it up and causing it to droop out of the camel's mouth with saliva. People may find it disgusting, but female camels are very excited, as if they are seeing their swollen genitals and they actively offer themselves to them.

This is a bit like the peacock's tail or the horns of a male deer, which are special physiological structures of male animals to attract the opposite sex. After a long period of evolution, it has become a part of the male camel's display of strength and sexual ability. Let's think about it, if this is a tongue, such a big lump would fill up the mouth, and it would have been pierced by the cactus long ago.

The love life of camels

Camels have always been not loyal in their love, just like the ancient patriarchal society of humans, which practiced polygamy. But camels basically do not have their own fixed wives and concubines, but instead use their strength to occupy good female camels.

The estrus season of camels is generally from December to the end of March of the following year, which is the season when winter turns to spring, and it is mainly male camels that are in estrus during this season. Female camels do not ovulate normally, and they need the semen of male camels to stimulate ovulation. Therefore, in this sense, the love season of camels is dominated by male camels.

But the female camel also has its own position, that is, the choice of who to sleep with is up to the female camel, and she will only sleep with the strongest winner. This is an instinct that almost all species can inherit, ensuring the fair competition principle of natural selection and survival of the fittest.

In order to win the favor of female camels, male camels must be jealous and rely on fighting to win. Only by showing their abilities can they obtain the right to mate.

Although the fights between male camels are not life-and-death, they are quite fierce. They collide and tangle with each other. It is common for them to fight head-on. Some male camels will clamp the head of their rivals between their legs and hold it down. In the most ruthless cases, they will bite their rivals' paws. You should know that the paws are the lifeblood of camels. Once injured, they cannot travel long distances, especially when carrying heavy loads in the hot and dry desert. Therefore, such camels will be abandoned or slaughtered by their owners.

When the male camel wins the fight, it will be arrogant and openly do indecent things. However, as long as the defeated camel is not seriously injured, it will still have evil intentions. Since there are many female camels around, it will quietly slip away and start showing off its meat balls to seduce other inferior female camels.

There are also many female camels who are not very pretty and have not attracted the attention of the victorious male camels. When they see these male camels talking sweetly, they also become aroused. In the eyes of lovers, beauty is everything, so they half-heartedly become entangled with them. In this case, it all depends on whose meatball is bigger and brighter. Although people may think it is a kind of disgusting and drooling look, the female camels feel like a long-awaited blessing.

There must be more than one defeated male camel. Which of these defeated camels can get the favor of the female camels first depends on how well they can eat the meat in their mouths.

Camels are an important means of transportation for humans in the desert. They are resistant to hunger and thirst. This is due to their special physiological conditions that have evolved over a long period of time. This is another topic, so I won’t talk about it in detail.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to discuss.

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