29
November
2006
November
2006
Bactrian Bench
(2 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)
Loading ...We saw this bench in a hotel that we stayed at recently. It was just there in the middle of the hallway.
Pretty neat, huh? I didn’t try it out, but it has to be more comfortable than sitting on an actual camel.
Note that this is a Bactrian Camel, not a Dromedary, due to the fact that it has twice the humpage.
Am I the only one that finds the phrase “even-toed ungulate” funny? It sounds like an insult from one taxidermist to another. “You even-toed ungulate!”
Erik R.
It looks pretty low to the ground. Must be for kids. Turns out camels also have “thick leathery pads on knees and chest”. That reminds me of the suede elbow patches my dad used to have on his suit coats. He called them monkey bottoms, probably not original but very evocative. Did you read on to where “odd-toed ungulates” were more successful than their even-toed friends?
I wonder what the advantage of the middle toe is, specifically… (beyond being able to make obscene gestures)
It could just be a coincidence that the toe mutation went along with another, more useful change.
You’re assuming that odd and even refer to number of digits whereas I think it has to do with alignment.
That’s what I thought too, until I read the Odd-Toed Ungulate wikipedia entry:
Of course, being wikipedia, it could be wrong…