A unique species of camel, tough enough to survive on salt water, has been discovered living in the Chinese desert at the edge of the Tibetan mountains.
The two-humped bactrian camels, thought to number fewer than 1,000, may not unfortunately remain for long with us. Illegal hunters entering the dangerous Kum Tagh dunes in China's Xinjiang province have been using land mines planted near the saltwater springs to catch the camels for meat.
The wild bactrian camels, first located in 1999, look similar to their domesticated cousins but genetically they are very different, according to scientists who went on a United Nations Environment Programme-funded expedition. Details of the find were announced yesterday in Nairobi at the 21st session of the UNEP's governing council.
The Chinese-British team found significant variation between the two, with the strong possibility that the wild version is actually a separate species.
"The scientists doing the genetic tests have found a 3 per cent difference in the [DNA] between the domesticated and the wild bactrian camels," said joint expedition leader Mr John Hare. "These wild camels may be a different species."
