Jamal the Camel

Hey, hey kids, I’m Jamal. I’m a dromedary camel. Bactrian camels have two humps and can live both in the desert and in cold plains and even mountains. No, I’m not a llama: I’m a camel! Yes, I know we look kind of similar from the front, but I’ve got a big hump on my back. That hump is more than just a decoration. We use that to store fat for long trips across the desert. We spend our whole lives in the desert so having that storage space is really important for us. We have special pads on our feet that give us grip and help us walk on the hot sand. We also can completely close our noses. This keeps us from getting sand up our nose. We work with people a lot, helping them move from place to place in the desert. We’ve been working with man for thousands of years. We have long memories. My mom still remembers exactly where in the desert she was when I was born.

Even though we dromedary camels live in the desert, we don’t always like the heat. We like to hide from the heat in the middle of the day. We live in north Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, wherever there is desert. We’ve spread out quite a bit while helping humans, even making it to Australia.

Unlike our ancestors, when man got off the Ark, he did not do what God said. Instead of spreading out like God said, they decided to build a city and a tower going to heaven. God wanted them to obey, so he confused their language so they couldn’t understand each other. Genesis 11:9 tells us “Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” My ancestors have helped man spread throughout the earth, particularly in areas that became hot and dry after the flood. Just like man, my relatives are now spread out, but we can trace our ancestry back to the camel kind that got off the Ark. Man was punished for his disobedience, but there is hope for him to be restored to a relationship with God. That hope is in Christ.

Fast Facts About Arabian Camels

Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Camelidae
Genus: Camelus
Species: dromedarius
Size: From 5.6–6.6 feet at the shoulder
Diet: Plants, particularly thorny desert plants
Habitat: Northern Africa, the Middle East, and into central Asia, with an introduced population living in Australia.
Lifespan: Around 40 years