Camels are famous for travelling long distances in hot deserts. Many people believe that a camel's hump is full of water. In fact, the hump stores fat. When food is hard to find, the camel's body can use this fat for energy.
Even so, camels are very good at saving water. They lose very little water as sweat, because a camel's body temperature can rise by several degrees during the day before it starts to sweat. At night, when the desert is cooler, the extra heat leaves its body.
When a camel finally finds water, it can drink a huge amount very quickly: more than 100 litres in about ten minutes. Drinking so much at once would make most animals ill, but a camel's body can deal with it safely.
Camels have other useful features, too. Long eyelashes keep sand out of their eyes, and they can close their nostrils during a sandstorm. Their wide feet spread out on soft sand, so they do not sink. It is no surprise that people call them "ships of the desert".