My Dave Barry desk calendar for today mentions (casually, as a joke) “inflatable camels”. So I googled it, and found this interesting but ultimately disturbing fact:
http://www.pueblozoo.org/archives/mar99/feature.htm
If the idea of male camels attracting females by blowing up their soft palates doesn’t seem truly bizarre (howcum Marlon Perkins didn’t report about that! Huh? It’s just the kind of thing he’d send Jim out after, while retreating to the safety of the Studio to do another insurance commercial.) then you aren’t human.
The websites all seem to be quoting one another, since the wording is precisely the same at most sites, but we learn here that it is called a “Brullsack” (with an umlaut over the “u”), meaning “bawling bag”, in German:
Oh yeah? Well, I read it as Inflatable Camel Palletts, and I was wondering how on Earth a camel could be supported by what was essentially an inflatable mattress.
Heh. Not only do they hang their soft palate out of their mouths, but they also make gurgling noises and lots of foamy saliva to go with it. Here’s a pic.
The reality is worse than what I’d imagined.
Truly, the ways of nature are wondrous strange, and gross to boot.
Howcome nobody ever told me these thingas before? I’ve seen and read countless books and articles and documentaries about Our Friend the Camel, and nobody ever mentioned their Mating Balloon behavior before,
Oddly, that doesn’t bother me; the male camels are just doing what they have to do to get laid. The worrisome part is that female camels are *attracted * by it.