I agree that we should eat more roo and camel. We are so obsessed with eating european style foods.. Imagine if we all ate Roos, it's easy if you try, imagine no fences, above us only magpie??. Anyway I didn't know the answer to this..
dinsdale said...Btw, can anyone think of any natural predator (in known history) except for humans (well, Arabs at least
) for camels?
I'll give it a shot.
'Known history' goes back a while, depending on who you talk to.. And it also varies depending on who you talk to. Ill take the geologists and Biologists idea of 'Known history'..
There isn't much info on natural predators of wild Dromedaries cause there are no wild populations left, except for ours.
From Wiki on the family Camelidae
Camelids are unusual in that their modern distribution is almost a mirror-image of their origin. Camelids first appeared very early in the evolution of the even-toed ungulates, around 45 million years ago during the middle Eocene, in present-day North America. Among the earliest camelids was the rabbit-sized Protylopus, which still had four toes on each foot. By the late Eocene around 35 million years ago, camelids such as Poebrotherium had lost the two lateral toes, and were about the size of a modern goat.[3][5]
The family diversified and prospered but remained confined to the North American continent until only about 2 or 3 million years ago, when representatives arrived in Asia, and (as part of the Great American Interchange that followed the formation of the Isthmus of Panama) South America.
The original camelids of North America remained common until the quite recent geological past, but then disappeared, possibly as a result of hunting or habitat alterations by the earliest human settlers, but more likely as a result of changing environmental conditions after the last Ice Age. Three species groups survived: the Dromedary of northern Africa and south-west Asia; the Bactrian Camel of central Asia; and the South American group, which has now diverged into a range of forms that are closely related but usually classified as four species: Llamas, Alpacas, Guanacos, and Vicu?as.
It goes on to say one species even evolved into a Giraffe Camel. We can conclude this animal held the record for the longest spit.
Anyway, Camelidae would have evolved alongside Sabretooths and Dire wolves.
But the most recent predators of our camel, as it lived in North Africa and SW Asia would have been, at an educated guess Lions, Wolves and definitely Tigers..
Wiki says until about 10,000 years ago the Lion was the most wide spread land mammal.. So they would be a likely predator. And the wolf lived all through asia so thats a another one.
The camel population is 1million and doubling every 9 years. Thats some crazy exponential growth.
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Also, on the subject of introduced species, the Thylacine was also introduced to Australia, Marsupials came from South America. I think that kind of puts into perspective the notion of animals 'belonging' in certain environments, nature doesn't care, just as long as everything is balanced. The mammals walked from South America, across Antarctica, and rocked up in Australia. Humans aren't the only introducers of pests..
What did the South American Marsupials look like??? check out the Marsupial version of the Sabretooth cat, the Thylacosmilus. Convergent evolution ftw..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThylacosmilusIsn't that more interesting that the story of Noah Ark? I would go to Sunday school if we learn't this...
