Tuesday, November 22, 2011

  Largest camel race: 555 Bactrian Camels set world record (HD Video)

 Inner Mongolia, China -- In Alxa League, northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, 555 Bactrian Camels completed a 5km cross-country race , setting the world record for the Largest camel race, according to World Record Academy (www.worldrecordacademy.com).

  Photo: 550 camels compete in a 5km cross-country race in Alxa League, setting the new World Record for the largest camel-race. Photo: als.gov.cn ( enlarge photo )

  The Guinness world record for the Camel with the most humps was set by an apparently unique, freak dromedary that possessed no fewer than four distinct, fully formed humps. Its very fortunate original owner sold the animal for almost $10,000 in the town of Hodeida, Yemen.

Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the first hybrid of camel and llama, known as a cama, set by Rama; his father was an Arabian camel or dromedary (Camelus dromedarius), and his mother was a South American guanaco (Lama huanacos), from which the domestic llama (L. glama) is descended.

   Participants started training their camels six month before the competition to ensure they were in peak physical condition on race day.

  Alatengaobao town has been long called the hometown of camels, with its camels accounting for two thirds of camels in Inner Mongolia. Camel race becomes indispensable when weddings, gatherings, and temple assembles come.

  The Bactrian camel is a large, even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of central Asia. It is one of the two surviving species of camel.

  The Bactrian camel has two humps on its back, in contrast to the single-humped dromedary camel. It is presently restricted in the wild to remote regions of the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts of Inner Mongolia and northwest China's Xinjiang.

  A small number of wild Bactrian camels still roam the Mangystau Province of southwest Kazakhstan.

  Nearly all of the estimated 1.4 million Bactrian camels alive today are domesticated.