The camels were doing something. We could not figure out whether they were fighting or about to have sex. The whole thing was slow and I hope at least they still knew whose head was whose.
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
The palindromedary!
That’s quite an entanglement.
Their humps are well-rounded. Also I love that you can see the sole of a camel in the first, quite unlike the cloven hooves of many other even-toes ungulates.
Camellids often spar like this -- they lean their heads down like that and one thing they try to do is get a hold of the other’s leg, which is why one is holding a leg up to keep it out of the other’s mouth. I can’t really tell but… probably this is two males sparring for fun. If they are really mad at each other, things are faster and they will also spit at one another. Most likely this is two herd mates having some fun together and at the same time reinforcing their position in the herd with this dominance display.
Oh, and one reason that they go for each other’s legs, is to try and get the other animal to sit down on the ground (“cush”) and again this is a dominance display… camelids mate by both sitting on the ground. Getting the other one to sit down first means you “win”.
Thanks for the info, kestrel
It didn’t look like they were seriously fighting (all in slow mo).
Our zoo often functions as a “broom cupboard” for larger zoos, meaning that they will send animals to us that they need to remove from groups, often young males who aren’t ready to take over their own herd but too old to stay in their family. Or the two old elephant ladies. One of them is such a beast that she’ll tolerate nobody but her BFF, which is a serious problem for zoos with larger herds. Here they can spend their last few years in company of each other.