Would you be shocked if I ask the question; what is the common historic link between the Middle east, Asia and America!?
The shock will come when I tell the answer by the way! The common thing is ‘The CAMEL!’
Then you will think what the Camel has to do with America! No no! You cannot store Oil in its hump!
The origin of the SHIP of the desert is actually from, hold your breath; AMERICA!
What’s unique about the earliest camels, Protylopus and Poebrotherium, is that they appeared about 45 million years ago in the North American rainforests and savannahs! One of the strangest places Paracamelus (which is also an ancestor of camel) fossils have been found was Ellesmere Island in northern Canada! The temperature there at the time was often below zero, with 6-month-long winters and very few sun rays. Not the place you’d expect to find a camel at!
Camels first evolved in North America around 40 to 50 million years ago, starting as rabbit-sized animals in ancient forests.
The earliest known camelid ancestor, Protylopus, was no larger than a rabbit and lived in the open forests of present-day South Dakota!
Over millions of years, they grew larger and adapted from dense forests to open grasslands. The sheep-sized Poebrotherium emerged 35 million years ago with features much closer to modern camelids.
The Ice Age camel Camelops evolved about 3 to 5 million years ago. Standing up to 7 feet tall, these imposing herbivores roamed widely from Alaska down into Mexico!
Then started the global migration and separation!
Around 6 to 7 million years ago, camel ancestors (Paracamelus) crossed the Bering Land Bridge (connecting modern-day Alaska and Russia) into Asia. These eventually gave rise to today’s Old World camels (the single-humped Dromedary and two-humped Bactrian)!
Then about 3 to 5 million years ago, early camels migrated south across the Isthmus of Panama, eventually evolving into modern South American camelids like the llama, alpaca and guanaco.
But the original native camelids (along with other megafauna like horses and mammoths) disappeared from North America about 13,000 years ago. Scientists generally attribute this extinction to a harsh combination of shifting Ice Age climate changes and aggressive hunting by early human arrivals!
So if you can speak to the camel and ask where it originally came from, it will look at you and say; “I am originally from America Mate!” Of course his CARD may not be green!
Then again all said and done the Camel is a majestic hard working SHIP of the desert and hard workers shine no matter where they come from!
Just like our hard working president Droupadi Murmu madam!
Now sleep like a Camel or Human! You decide!
SHubh ratri…
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