- Title: UAE: BRITISH VETERINARIAN MATES CAMELS WITH LLAMAS TO CREATE UNIQUE HYBRID CAMAS
- Date: 11th March 2002
- Summary: (L!1) AL-AWIR, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (MARCH 11, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) ( GOOD SHOTS) HERD OF FEMALE CAMELS WAITING TO BE INSEMINATED WITH CAMEL SEMEN CLOSE UP OF CAMEL MORE OF CAMELS (2 SHOTS) FEMALE CAMEL BEING TAKEN INTO LABORATORY (2 SHOTS) VETERINARIAN TEAM PREPARING TO INSEMINATE CAMEL CU: CAMEL SEMEN BEING PUT INTO INSEMINATING TUBE CAMEL BEING TIED DOWN CLOS
- Embargoed: 26th March 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: UAE
- Country: United Arab Emirates
- Topics: Environment,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA40140AFZRR735TWIT99JEI7XC
- Story Text: A specialised veterinarian centre in the United Arab Emirates has mated the symbol of the desert, a camel, with the more exotic llama to produce camas -- a unique hybrid that combines the best of both animals.
British veterinarian Lulu Skidmore, chief scientific officer at the Camel Research Centre (CRC), has been breeding camas for the past five years to create an animal with the sought-after coat of the llama and the endurance of the larger camel.
Skidmore's improbable-sounding experiment is the first of its kind in the world and she has had relative success -- Rama, a male, was born in 1998. This month, he was joined by Kamilah, a brown and white cuddly female who looks like both her parents.
"It's not quite as bizarre a crossing as people first imagine," Skidmore said at the desert centre in Al-Awir, located some 35 km (miles) north of the emirate of Dubai.
Although they hail from East and West, camels and llamas originated from the same ancient camelid that inhabited the Rocky Mountains area of North America some 30 million years ago.
Back then, some of these primitive creatures migrated to Mongolia via Alaska and Siberia, evolving into the Bactrian two-humped camel. Others headed south to populate the Saudi Arabian peninsula, Iran and Pakistan where they became the smaller, one-humped dromedary.
More camelids went into South Americas Andes mountains, where they were domesticated by the ancient Incas into llamas.
Despite their close links, camels and llamas do not mate in the wild although they can be readily cross-bred as they have the same number of chromosomes.
At the CRC, nature gets a helping hand in the form of state-of-the-art reproduction techniques.
Since camelids only ovulate when they have intercourse, Skidmore and her two-man team first inject the llamas with a hormone called gonadotrophin to stimulate ovulation.
They then monitor the development of the llamas ovaries and then when the follicles are ripe, the animals are inseminated by fresh camel semen which is collected using an artificial vagina.
If the researchers are lucky, pregnancy will occur and a cama will be born around 11 months later.
Rama, the first hybrid, boasts a llama-like disposition but his vocalisations and general appearance are more like a camel. Skidmore hopes Kamilah will also grow into a creature with a good quality coat and whose size is somewhere between her 85 kg llama mother and her 500 kg camel father.
So far, the CRC has inseminated 50 llamas this way. It has also inseminated female camels with llama sperm and transferred fertilised cama embroyes into female camels, one of which remains pregnant until now.
Were getting the best of both breeds: the fleece of the llamas is very expensive and desired by the wool industry while the strength and patience of the camel makes the cama an ideal pack animal, she added.
Camas have been likened to mules, the horse-donkey hybrid common to most parts of the world. Like mules, they are sterile but unlike that cross-breed, they must be created artificially.
The cama project, which is funded by Dubais deputy ruler and savvy businessman Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is not yet commercially viable but Skidmore hopes to produce enough animals in the future to make what she affectionately calls a giant-sized carpet.
Skidmore came out to Dubai 12 years ago as part of a team commissioned by the government to develop embryo transfer and artificial insemination techniques for racing camels, which like thoroughbreds, can fetch up to millions of dollars in the Gulf.
Every year, she holds courses on reproduction methods for camel specialists from as far afield as Kazakhistan and Sudan, but the camas are her real passion.
When discussing the animals, Skidmore sounds proud and disparaging, like a mother talking about her children.
Like most parents, Skidmore does not know how the offspring will turn out. But the scientist in her knows that their existence is as important as their future. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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