Jazzy's giant Hump Day camels

[DrLeftover]

Fossil hunters have unearthed fragments of leg bone belonging to a giant camel that lived in the forests of the High Arctic more than three million years ago.

The ancient beast stood almost three metres tall at the hump, about a third higher than its modern descendant, the single-humped dromedary, or Arabian camel.

Scientists who found the remains said the extinct mammal may have already had the wide, flat feet and fatty hump associated with adaptation to life in the desert, because they could have helped the animal endure its harsh, snow-covered habitat.

Remnants of the oversized ungulate, 30 pieces in all, were recovered from a steep, sandy slope at Fyles Leaf Bed on Ellesmere island, the most northern and mountainous of the Canadian Arctic archipelago.

The sediments around the fossils date to at least 3.4m years old, when the region was much warmer than today and dominated by larch forests. Temperatures hovered a few degrees below zero, and winters plunged the region into six months of darkness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/mar/05/fossilised-giant-camel-bone-found

 

[DrLeftover]

The NPR version of the story:



http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...s-of-modern-camels-roamed-the-canadian-arctic

 

[Jazzy]

They're so cute and have the same fur color as my hair!

 

[Evil Eye]

I guess there isn't much of a difference between a desert and the arctic...



's a pretty big camel.