Bactrian camel Camelus bactrianus

The Bactrian camel is the two-humped camel of the cold deserts of Central Asia, a separate species from the dromedary rather than a northern variety of it. Domestic herds work across China and Mongolia mainly as transport and draught animals and for wool, milk and meat; FAO notes the Bactrian is used mostly as a working animal in China and that the dromedary is the better milker. The wild form survives as only 730 to 880 animals in the Outer Altai Gobi. Where the dromedary is built for heat, the Bactrian carries a heavy fleece - Kazakh and Kalmyk stock yield 5 to 13 kg of hair a year - and is the larger animal: females 500 to 700 kg, bulls around 692 to 760 kg with records past 1,000 kg. Gestation is about 415 days, a month longer than the dromedary's, and lactation runs to 18 months. The two species interbreed readily and the hybrids are prized for stamina, milk and wool. Veterinarily the genus is odd: blood glucose runs near twice a ruminant's, dietary salt many times a cow's is tolerated, fat is banked in the humps, and camelids make heavy-chain antibodies that lack a light chain.