Inside Nature's Giants

The Camel (3x1)

: 30, 2011

The BAFTA-winning Inside Nature's Giants team returns for a new series, heading deep into the Australian Outback to explore the ultimate desert survivor: the camel. We don't think of Australia as the home of camels, but in the middle of this vast island there are over a million feral dromedaries roaming around. European settlers introduced them over a century ago to help build Australia's railways and explore the Outback. But with the advent of roads, cars and trucks, camels were no longer needed, so their owners released them into the desert. Mark Evans and Joy Reidenberg brave the baking desert to dissect a camel. They uncover the secret of the camel's hump and investigate how its elastic legs, stretchy lips and pedestal are among the many surprising adaptations that enable the camel to thrive in such a dry and hostile environment.