Quick Take
- There's one camel breed uniquely built to swim, and its swimming ability has nothing to do with living near the ocean. Meet the swimming breed →
- Oman's geography gives its camels access to terrain most of the world never sees, and that access changes everything about their behavior. See Oman's unique geography →
- Camels almost never sweat, yet they survive extreme heat. The way they do it busts a very popular myth about their bodies. Discover how camels beat heat →
- Some camels in Oman are walked into the sea on purpose, and the reason has nothing to do with cooling off. See why camels enter the sea →
Camels might have a reputation for disliking water, but the camels of Oman seem to have a different opinion—or at least one does. A short video taken on one of Oman’s beaches and posted on Instagram shows the camel appearing to frolic, roll around, and splash in the shallow waves rolling up on the beach. It also doesn’t look like it is in any hurry to get out of the cooling surf.
It’s an unusual sight, especially for tourists who don’t spend a lot of time on Oman’s beaches. After all, camels are desert animals built to store water for days—not a species you’d expect to see taking a leisurely dip in the ocean.
Was this a one-off experience someone was lucky enough to capture on video? It may not be. It turns out camels and the ocean are not as different as you might think, especially in Oman, where the desert and sea are neighbors.
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When a Camel Goes For a Swim
For Instagram user @salimalkathiri20, a tour guide in Oman, seeing camels splashing in the Arabian Sea is worth capturing on video. While the rest of the world usually thinks of camels traversing deserts and not splashing in the sea, this tour guide is used to seeing Omani wildlife in its natural habitats.
Other videos showing camels near or in bodies of water, typically in Oman, have gone viral. Even Snopes got into the action to verify videos of camels in the water.
Each time a video showing a camel in the water is shared, the viewer reaction is the same: surprise and awe, plus a lot of comments. Not coincidentally, many of these camels-in-water videos are taken in Oman.
There’s a big reason for this.
Oman Is Unique for Camel Habitats
For the camels that live in Oman, large bodies of water are plentiful and usually nearby. In many places, Oman’s deserts run directly to the sea. In fact, there are nearly 2,000 miles of coastline where desert meets water.
Al Haffa Beach is one of Oman’s many beaches.
©Oleg Znamenskiy/Shutterstock.com
In contrast, most other camel habitats are interior deserts with no bodies of water in sight. That’s why popular culture, including practically every movie ever made that included camels, shows them in desert landscapes. Oman’s camels live a different lifestyle.
Additionally, for centuries Bedouin herders have kept camels near Oman’s coastlines, giving the dromedaries quick access to the sea when they want to take a dip. Camel trekking and herding also remain popular near beach towns, providing even more access to the sea.
Do Camels Like to Swim?
When it comes to animals that like to swim, the family dog probably comes to mind. Most camels are not quite that enthusiastic about swimming, but they are not afraid of the water, either. While most camels never get close enough to the sea or ocean to decide if they like swimming, there is one species famous for its swimming skills.
Kharai Camels, which are native to the coastal regions of Gujarat, India, including Kutch and Jamnagar, are built to exist on desert land and in the ocean. They are the only camel breed built this way out of necessity: they graze on mangroves that grow just offshore of their desert home, requiring them to swim to reach their food sources.
For the rest of the camel breeds, swimming is not out of necessity. But that doesn’t mean they won’t go in the water. Oman’s camel handlers say that camels will go into the water to wade and swim when given the chance. Whether they do it to cool off or for another reason is up for debate.
How Do Camels Stay Cool?
Camels rarely sweat. They regulate their body temperature throughout the day to align with the outside temperatures at any given time. This is a process called heterothermy, and it helps them preserve water internally.
One study of Arabian camels found that the species takes heterothermy to another level – breaking it into two different processes called poikilothermy and homeothermy. Scientists believe the camels alternate between the two cycles based on circadian rhythms.
One common myth is unrelated to how dromedaries—camels with one hump—stay cool. Their humps are filled with fat, not water, and are not used to regulate body temperature.
Why Camels Swim
Some camels, like the Kharai in India, swim out of necessity to get to their favorite food source. But for other camel species, swimming does not come naturally.
Kharai camels are found only in India. They swim to reach the mangroves that provide their food.
©Pravin Indrekar/Shutterstock.com
Racing camels in Oman and the United Arab Emirates swim as part of their training regimen. Their trainers intentionally lead the camels into the sea. Swimming helps the camels build up their fitness before races. That is the image that sparked the Snopes investigation.
But what about the camel on the Omani beach that was posted on Instagram? Nobody knows for sure why it was frolicking in the surf. Perhaps it was to cool off. Maybe it just felt like having a little fun. Either way, it captured the imagination of many, garnering nearly 900,000 likes and more than 12,000 comments.
