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Deep Dives
Duncan Geere
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Duncan Geere
Gepubliceerd
22-06-23

Mob Menagerie: Camel

One hump or two?

In the Trails & Tales update, you’ll spot a new desert inhabitant – the Camel! 

Camels might have a reputation for being ornery, but actually, they’re pretty chill in Minecraft. They like nothing more than sitting and hanging out, but they’re equally fond of going on adventures too.

Camels spawn in desert villages during world generation, and won’t respawn if they’re killed – so take care of them. You can feed a cactus to a hurt camel to heal it, but an even better approach is to bring two together and feed them each a cactus. Through the magic of biology, they’ll produce a baby camel – raising the camel population of your world by one.

A proud camel with the sun setting in the background.

There are a bunch of unique things that camels can do compared to other mobs. First, they can sit down. I know, groundbreaking stuff. When they’re sitting down, they can’t be moved no matter how hard you try. 

Secondly, their long legs allow them to step over 1.5-block-high obstacles – like walls and fences. That makes them a little harder to contain than other passive mobs, but it’s handy for when you’re riding one and want to get past a fence. 

Thirdly, those long legs also put any riders out of the reach of many hostile mobs. Zombies, vindicators, Endermites, silverfish, piglins, and hoglins are all unable to attack any player riding a camel, though you’ll still be vulnerable to ranged enemies and those that jump while attacking.

Two players riding a camel.
Steve riding a camel.
A camel and its young one.

Fourthly, camels can be ridden by two players at once! While riding, the person in the front seat controls the camel’s speed and direction, and the person in the back seat can just sit and enjoy the world passing by.

Finally, a tamed camel can sprint – and it can also dash forward. Holding down the jump button while riding a camel will charge up a dash. Release the button to activate it – launching the camel and its riders twelve blocks forward. Extremely useful when crossing chasms.

Minecraft’s camels have just one hump – but originally, they had two! As revealed by Alexander Sandor in our developer diary, the first camel model in the game was “basically a teddy bear with two humps”. “I shouldn’t say it was ugly...” added Agnes Larsson. So, it got a redesign into the version you see today.

A real world camel looking at the camera!

In the real world, some camels have one hump, and others have two. The one-humpers are known as dromedaries and are found in the Sahara, the Middle East, and have been introduced in Australia. The two-humpers are called Bactrian camels, and are only found in Central Asia.

Many people think that camels store water in their humps – but that’s not strictly true. The hump is actually just fatty tissue. Putting all their fat in one place, though, allows the rest of the camel’s body to lose heat faster – meaning they don’t need to sweat as much as other animals might – preserving water found elsewhere in their bodies.

So really, camels survive the heat of the desert not by storing water but by being more efficient with it. Let this be an inspiration to you, the next time you’re considering building a 100-chest storage vault. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, my camel and I are headed off on an adventure.  
 
*Duncan lollops off into the sunset*

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