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This camel trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and starts with the myths (no, the hump is not full of water) and works through the astonishing biology that lets a dromedary go ten days without a drink, drink 140 litres in one sitting and survive on water saltier than the sea. From there it heads into history: the U.S. Army's camel experiment, Australia's million feral camels, the Imperial Camel Corps, and the Silk Road Bactrians. The last stretch is for the pub quiz crowd: the plane, the cigarette, the prog band and the programming style that all borrowed the camel's name, plus the animals of the camel family that live in the Andes. It suits animal lovers, geography and science classrooms, and anyone building a themed round. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic or primary source, so the facts will stand up to the sharpest zoologist at your table.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does a camel actually store in its hump?
Fat
The fat is a calorie reserve; the animal keeps its water in its bloodstream, not the hump.
Q 02How many humps does a dromedary have?
One
Dromedaries make up about 94 percent of the world's camels; the two-humped Bactrian accounts for the rest.
Q 03How many living species of true camel are there?
Three
The dromedary, the domestic Bactrian, and the critically endangered wild Bactrian of the Gobi.
Q 04Roughly what share of the world's camels are one-humped dromedaries?
94%
Two-humped Bactrians make up only about 6 percent.
Q 05Roughly how much water can a thirsty dromedary drink in one go?
About 140 litres
That is around 30 imperial gallons, taken into the bloodstream rather than the hump.
Q 06How often can a dromedary go without drinking, even in very hot conditions?
Once every 10 days
It can shed up to 30 percent of its body mass to dehydration and recover.
Q 07Unlike other mammals, a camel's red blood cells are what shape?
Oval
The shape lets blood keep flowing during dehydration and survive the flood of water when the camel drinks.
Q 08A camel's body temperature can swing between roughly 34°C at dawn and what by sunset?
40°C
Letting its temperature climb means it hardly needs to sweat during the day.
Q 09What is the translucent third eyelid that a camel uses to sweep sand from its eye called?
The nictitating membrane
Long lashes and closable nostrils complete the sandstorm defences.
Q 10How many chambers does a camel's stomach have?
Three
Camels chew the cud even though they are not classed as true ruminants, which have four chambers.
Q 11What is the average lifespan of a camel?
40 to 50 years
That is longer than a horse and about the same as a chimpanzee.
Q 12What top speed can a camel reach in a short burst?
About 65 km/h
They can sustain around 40 km/h, which is why camel racing is a serious sport in the Gulf.
Q 13What is the dulla, the inflatable organ a male dromedary extrudes from his mouth in the rutting season?
A throat sac
He inflates it to assert dominance and attract females; camelids are also the only ungulates that mate sitting down.
Q 21Which ill-fated 1860 expedition across the Australian interior was the first major one to rely on camels?
Burke and Wills
The cameleers who came with the animals from Karachi became known, not always accurately, as "Afghans".
Q 22Which future Confederate president championed the Army's Camel Corps as Secretary of War?
Jefferson Davis
Congress voted $30,000 for the experiment in 1855; the Civil War killed it off.
Q 23The U.S. Army's first shipload of 34 camels was landed in 1856 at Indianola, in which state?
Texas
They were marched to Camp Verde via San Antonio; the last one was reportedly seen in Arizona in 1891.
Q 14On which continent did camels originally evolve?
North America
They crossed the Bering land bridge into Asia about six million years ago and later died out in their homeland.
Q 15Which four South American animals belong to the camel family, Camelidae?
Llama, alpaca, guanaco and vicuña
The New World and Old World branches split roughly eleven million years ago.
Q 16The word dromedary comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Running
Dromas kamelos was literally the "running camel", and the English word dates from the 14th century.
Q 17The two-humped Bactrian camel is named after an ancient region in which part of the world?
Central Asia
Its tolerance for cold and altitude made it the workhorse of the Silk Road caravans.
Q 18The wild Bactrian camel is the only large mammal known to survive on water saltier than what?
Seawater
Fewer than a thousand remain in the Gobi and Lop Nur deserts of China and Mongolia.
Q 19Which country is home to the world's largest population of feral camels?
Australia
They were imported as pack animals in the 19th century; a 2008 estimate put the herd at over a million.
Q 20What was the name of the sole survivor of the first camel shipment to Adelaide in 1840?
Harry
He later shifted while his owner John Horrocks was reloading a gun, earning Horrocks the epitaph "the man who was shot by his own camel".
Q 24Besides two Australian battalions and one British, the Imperial Camel Corps had one from where?
New Zealand
The brigade fought in Sinai, Palestine and the Arab Revolt.
Q 25Since the 2000s, what has largely replaced child jockeys in Gulf camel racing?
Remote-controlled robots
The UAE and Qatar banned underage jockeys after human-rights complaints.
Q 26Camel wrestling, in which two rutting males grapple, is most associated with which country?
Turkey
The sport is strongest in the Aegean region and is usually staged in mating season with a female led past the pair.
Q 27The Pushkar Camel Fair is held every autumn in which Indian state?
Rajasthan
It runs through the Hindu month of Kartik and features a longest-moustache contest alongside the livestock trading.
Q 28Which two countries produced 64 percent of the world's camel milk in 2017?
Somalia and Kenya
Desert nomads can live for a month on nothing but camel milk, which is easy to turn into yogurt but hard to make into butter.
Q 29The desert creature nicknamed the camel spider, subject of many urban legends, is really what?
A solifuge
They belong to the order Solifugae, cannot spin silk, and are essentially harmless to humans.
Q 30The cama, first born in Dubai in 1998, is a hybrid of a dromedary and which animal?
A llama
Breeders wanted a strong, cooperative animal that produced more wool than a llama.