Wild Bactrian Camels - as opposed to the one-hump "Dromodary" camels.
These camels live in the Great Gobi Desert which is truly huge. You could lose an entire country in the Gobi Desert.
There are only about 600~800 camels in a vast, desolate wasteland so finding them is the first challenge.
If you are fortunate enough to find a group, they immediately begin running from your truck.
They will often run 15+ kilometers and just never seem to stop across the unforgiving, harsh desert.
It's so baren and flat, there are very few ways to sneak up on them. They are nutoriously hard to photograph.
Without spending months, this running group was the best I could get.
Gobi "A" strictly protected area, Mongolia
April 2017
Below is a "wild" Bactrian Camel in a breeding center just outside the protected area.
These are being bred for reintroduction into the Gobi Desert to help the wild ones grow in number.
About 700,000 years ago, 2 subspecies of Bactrian Camel evolved and humans domesticated one of them.
There are now several subtle differences between the truly wild ones and the domesticated ones.
Below is one of the domesticated ones at the same time of year. They are just starting to lose winter coats.
The hair, humps and necks are slightly different and there are even subtle bone structure differences now.