Trample
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Trample ( Camelus ferus ) |
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| Przewalski , 1878 |
The Bactrian camel , also known as Bactrian or Bactrian camel called ( Camelus ferus ) is a mammal of the family of Camels (Camelidae). As a domesticated pack animal and farm animal, it is particularly widespread in Asia , but the wild populations are highly endangered.
features
Trample can be distinguished from the dromedary , the single-humped camel, by their two humps. They reach a head body length of up to 3 meters, a shoulder height of 180 to 230 centimeters and an average weight of 450 to 500 kilograms. The tail is relatively short at 35 to 55 centimeters. Their coat color varies from sand gray to dark brown, the hairs on the neck and throat are the longest. During the winter they have an extremely thick, long fur that is shed so quickly when the temperature rises that the animals often look ragged. The wild animals differ from the domesticated animals, among other things, in that their fur is lighter (mostly sand-colored) and thinner, their physique is slimmer and their humps are more pointed.
These animals have a long neck on which an elongated head sits. The upper lip is split, as protection from the weather, the eyes have large lids with long eyelashes and the nostrils can be closed. As with all camels, the feet have two toes that are provided with calloused pads instead of hooves. The stomach is made as with all camels of several chambers together, which facilitates the digestion of plant food.
Contrary to popular belief, the humps do not serve as water but as fat stores. In addition, the animals have developed some special features that enable them to survive in inhospitable regions: greatly elongated Henle's loops in the kidneys ensure a high concentration of urine , and the feces are thickened compared to other mammals. A special feature are the red blood cells , which, as with all six camel species, are not round but oval. This shape means that camels can absorb a great deal of water in a very short time without the risk of water intoxication ("overhydration" of the body). Their body temperature is more variable than that of most other mammals and can fluctuate by 6 to 8 ° C, which significantly reduces the risk of overheating and perspiration .
distribution and habitat
The original range of the trample extended roughly from central Kazakhstan through southern Mongolia and northwestern China to the great arch of the Yellow River . The domestication of animals began in the third millennium BC and today they are common as pack animals and farm animals in large parts of Asia - the total population is estimated at 2.5 million specimens. You can find them from Asia Minor to Manchuria . The trample is widespread to the north as far as Omsk in western Siberia , which is about 55 degrees north latitude.
The wild populations were pushed back more and more by hunting. In the 19th century they became extinct in the west of their area of distribution, since the 1920s the population numbers have also declined significantly in the east. In 2003, lived according to estimates by IUCN in: only about 950 wild Bactrian camels in three separate populations Taklamakan -Wüste and Lop Nor basin in China's Xinjiang (a total of around 600 animals) and in the Mongolian part of the desert Gobi (about 350 animals ).
Trample are adapted to dry habitats . In the winter months they prefer to stay along rivers and in the summer months they migrate to the dry steppes and semi-deserts . The temperature fluctuations in their habitat, which can reach -30 ° C to +40 ° C, are remarkable.
Way of life
Social behavior and activity times
Trample are diurnal and mostly live in harem groups with around 15 animals. These consist of a male (stallion), many females (mares) and their offspring (foals). But there are also specimens living alone. The average population density is 5 animals per 100 square kilometers.
food
These animals, like all camels, are primarily herbivores that can ingest all kinds of plants - even thorny and salty ones. The food is swallowed little chewed and first reaches the forestomach to be finally digested after ruminating. This process is similar to that of ruminants (Ruminantia) - to which the camels are not included zoologically. The digestive system of the camels is likely to have developed independently of what is shown, among other things, by the fact that the forestomach are provided with glands .
Trample can get by for several days without water and, if necessary, can absorb 150 liters of water within 10 minutes. The features mentioned above help you to be extremely economical with water, and you can also drink brackish or salty water.
Reproduction
After a gestation period of around twelve to fourteen months, the female usually gives birth to a single young, twins are rare. Most births occur in March and April. Newborn trample flee the nest and can walk within a few hours. The young are suckled for around a year and a half; sexual maturity occurs at around three to five years of age. Life expectancy is estimated at up to 40 years.
Man and trample
Domestication
Trample were probably domesticated for the first time in West Turkestan and northern Iran in the third millennium BC (around 2500 BC) , probably originally as pack animals. Reports of their endurance indicate a weight of 170 to 270 kilograms, which can be carried around 47 kilometers per day. But the products of these animals are also used, their milk is drunk and their meat eaten, the fat from the humps is used for cooking and clothing or blankets are made from the fur.
Almost all of the trample kept in zoological gardens today are domesticated animals.
The discovery of the wild animals
In 1876 , the Russian Nikolai Prschewalski was the first western scientist to encounter wild beasts of prey at Lake Karakoshun in the eastern part of the Tarim Basin between the Taklamakan and Kuruktagh deserts in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang . He managed to catch some animals and to describe them scientifically for the first time. In 1901, Sven Hedin also found wild animals in the same area on Kum-darja near Lop Nor . In 1927, the Russian scientist AD Simukov researched the distribution and way of life of these animals. While at the end of the 19th century the area between the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts was still continuously populated by trampoline animals, hunting in the first decades of the 20th century caused the settlement area to be split up into today's areas.
protection
According to official estimates from 2001, there are around 600 of these animals in China and another 350 saltwater camels in the Mongolian Gobi Desert, in which the Southern Altay Gobi Nature Reserve (= Great Gobi Reserve A ) exists. As far as is known, 15 wild trample are kept in captivity in China and Mongolia.
In the Red List of Threatened Species of IUCN , the wild Bactrian camels since 2002 as threatened with extinction (critically endangered) , respectively. It is expected that the population in Mongolia and accordingly also in China will decrease by 84% by 2033 (in the third generation after 1985). The Mongolian subpopulation decreased from 650 animals to 350 animals in the years 1984 to 2006, the Chinese population shrank in the years before 2006 by around 20 animals that were killed by hunters or miners.
In the years 1980-1981 the traveled Research Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , led by Xia Xuncheng the Lop Nor desert and made a map of the range of the salt water camels. John Hare checked the population of the saltwater camels first in 1992 in the Gashun Gobi Desert and later in the years 1995–1999 in the Lop Nor Desert.
In 1997 he became one of the founders of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation (Foundation for the Protection of Wild Camels), which works to protect the last living saltwater camels. The Wild Camel Protection Foundation is committed to protecting the last living wild camel animals. Together with the Chinese government, they therefore planned a large-scale sanctuary for these animals, which is financially supported by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
On March 18, 1999, this sanctuary was established by the Chinese State Environment Protection Administration of China (SEPA) with the name Xinjiang Lop Nur Nature Sanctuary of China (= Xinjiang Lop Nur Wild Camel Nature Reserve ). It has an area of 107,768 km² and encloses both the Lop Nor lake basin and the Lop Nor Chinese nuclear weapons test site. Its borders touch three other protected areas: Arjin Shan Reserve (15,000 km²), Annanba Protected Area (3,960 km²) and Wanyaodong (333 km²). Other sources speak of the Arjin Shan Lop Nur Nature Reserve with a size of 65,000 km².
In 2001, only five of the 15 road access roads into the protected area were monitored by checkpoints. The establishment of this protected area for the conservation of biodiversity, the ecosystem and of Yardangs dominated landscape in Lop Nor was on 6 November 1998 as Project 600 of the Global Environment Facility funded (= Global Environment Facility = GEF) to 2001 with a grant of $ 750,000. The German share of this grant is 12% (= $ 90,000). The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region will cover the running costs of the sanctuary, including gasoline and personnel costs.
A danger for this protected area comes from the workers who are employed in the industrial exploitation of the mineral resources in the lake basin of Lop Nor, since the protected saltwater camels are traditionally hunted as sport or as fresh meat suppliers, although their hunting is strictly forbidden in China. A gas pipeline, which was to be routed underground through the protected area in a west-east direction, was finally built outside the protected area. In 2017, 132 mines had already been closed, and 15 more pits or mines will be closed after their license expires.
Systematics and naming
Together with the single-humped dromedary, the trample forms the genus of the Old World camels ( Camelus ), which together with the American llamas and vicuñas form the family of camels (Camelidae). Since camel animals and dromedaries are crossable and can give birth to fertile offspring ( camel hybrids ), they are sometimes grouped together as a common species - however, due to the morphological differences, they are listed as separate species in most classifications.
The first description of the trample was made by Carl von Linné in 1758 under the scientific name Camelus bactrianus , based on domesticated animals. Nikolai Prschewalski named the wild animals he discovered as a new species in 1878 under the name Camelus ferus . Today domesticated and free-living populations are sometimes viewed as one species, with the scientific name of the wild form being Camelus bactrianus ferus .
Due to differences in body structure and their better utilization of salty water, the wild animals represent, in the opinion of some researchers, their own species or subspecies, which is known as the saltwater camel ( Camelus bactrianus ferus ). However, it is clearly a population of animals that has been separated for a long time . Genetic studies have shown that the genes of the wild animals differ by 2.8% from the genes of the domesticated animals (for comparison: the difference between the genes of humans and chimpanzees is less than 2%).
literature
- Xia Xuncheng, Hu Wenkang (Eds.): The Mysterious Lop Lake. The Lop Lake Comprehensive Scientific Expedition Team, the Xinjiang Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Science Press, Beijing (Peking) 1985 (bilingual English and Chinese throughout; loanable from the university library of the Technical University of Berlin).
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 .
- Bernhard Grzimek : Grzimeks animal life. Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom. Bechtermünz 2001, ISBN 3-8289-1603-1 .
- John Hare : On the trail of the last wild camels. An expedition to forbidden China. Foreword by Jane Goodall. Frederking & Thaler, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-89405-191-4 .
- Don E. Wilson, DeeAnn M. Reeder (Eds.): Mammal Species of the World . 3rd edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4 .
Web links
- Endangered species protection for wild camels
- Animalinfo - facts and figures on the threat level
- Wild Camel Protection Foundation with a map of the protected area in Lop Nor
- Saar Slegers: Four women in the Gobi desert . On the trail of the wild camels (RBB 2018)
- Jona Lendering: Dromedaries and Camels . In: Livius.org (English)
- Camelus ferus onthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . Retrieved June 21, 2009.
- Opinion 2027 of the ICZN ( Memento from April 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ The map is on page 82 of the book The Mysterious Lop Lake.
- ↑ Sputnik News: Mine closings in connection with the protection of wild camels in the Lop Nur National Nature Reserve, August 11, 2017
- ↑ Li Yi, Yisi Ai, Liang Ming, Le Hai, Jing He, Fu-Cheng Guo, Xiang-Yu Qiao and Rimutu Ji: Molecular diversity and phylogenetic analysis of domestic and wild Bactrian camel populations based on the mitochondrial ATP8 and ATP6 genes. Livestock Science 199, 2017, pp. 95-100 doi: 10.1016 / j.livsci.2017.03.015
- ↑ R. Ji, P. Cui, F. Ding, J. Geng, H. Gao, H. Zhang, J. Yu, S. Hu and H. Meng: Monophyletic origin of domestic bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) and its evolutionary relationship with the extant wild camel (Camelus bactrianus ferus). Animal Genetics 40, 2009, pp. 377-382 doi: 10.1111 / j.1365-2052.2008.01848.x