The biological inspirations of Avatar: the arctic camel
Perhaps my greatest disappointment regarding The Legend of Korra was the lack of many new animal hybrids to chew on. I hope The Seven Havens can give us more in that regard. In the meantime, I have to admit that the animal designs we did get from TLoK are absolute bangers. Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for ungulates, but the arctic camel has quickly become one of my favourites.
The question arises- why choose a camel as the base for an animal that lives at the South Pole? It’s not generally the kind of animal you’d envision living in a tundra. It’s possible that this is the reason it was chosen, as yet another fantastical part of the Avatar world. But interestingly, the idea of a camel braving cold and snow is a lot more realistic than you might first think.
In the modern day, there are two surviving lineages of camel: the one-humped dromedary camel, which hails from Northern Africa and the Middle East, and the two-humped bactrian camel, found in the deserts of Central Asia. Avatar’s arctic camel is obviously based on the latter. Atlaculture has previously pointed out that certain aspects of the Water Tribe are based on real-world Mongolian cultures; I have to wonder if this is the reason camels were chosen as mounts for the Water Tribe.
Photo by Nurlan Kalchinov
The Central Asian deserts are highly seasonal. Temperatures swing from -20°C (-4°F) in the winter to 30°C (86°F) in the summer. Bactrian camels are thus not just adapted for the searing heat, but also the frigid cold. In the winter, they grow long, shaggy coats, and wild bactrian camels have even been seen eating snow.
If we go back in time, we can even find truly arctic camels in our real world. The record for “furthest north camel” is currently held by the Ellesmere Island camel (binomial name pending). For those of you who are like me and don’t know anything about North America, this is Ellesmere Island:
The fossil of the Ellesmere Island camel is highly fragmentary, so unfortunately we don’t know anything about it except that it was Very Big. This makes sense, as arctic animals tend to get larger than their equatorial counterparts (see: Bergmann’s rule), which may be because larger animals lose less heat. It’s important to note, however, that this animal was not living in today’s arctic climate. It lived about 3.5 million years ago, before the current era of northern glaciation. That’s why, while there are no trees on Ellesmere Island today, there are some in the background of this delightful paleoart by Agustin Diaz:
The Ellesmere Island camel is only one example of the “High Arctic camels” that lived before the ice age. So… why were arctic camels a thing?? The truth is, camels and their closest living relatives- llamas, alpacas, and so on- are just a modern snapshot of an ancient and diverse lineage called camelids. We can see just from camels and llamas an adaptation to many different environments- hot and cold deserts, mountains, and the high arctic. Camelids first evolved in the North American prairie, as small antelope-like creatures. My favourite extinct camelid is Aepycamelus, which convergently evolved with giraffes.
Art by Carlost1205
Since camels first evolved in North America, they had to cross the Bering land bridge- a sunken steppe that once connected Siberia and Alaska- to make it to their modern homes in Asia and Africa. They had to adapt to the arctic to make this crossing, and their relatives left behind in North America are now all extinct. So, if arctic camels really were a fantastical pipe dream… we may not have camels at all. Funny how that works.
Yes, this is my first post on this blog. Does anyone have any ideas for fictional creatures or media properties I could cover in the future?
This is so neat. LOK definitely leaned more into Mongolian culture in general, compared to ATLA, so the cold weather camels align with that.
