With its tolerance for cold, drought, and high altitudes, it enabled the travel of caravans on the Silk Road.

[6][7] The Bactrian camel was given its current binomial name Camelus bactrianus by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 publication Systema Naturae.

[8] Though sharing a closer common ancestor with it than with the dromedary, the domestic Bactrian camel does not descend from the wild Bactrian camel, with the two species having diverged hundreds of thousands of years ago, with their mitochondrial genomes estimated to have diverged around 1 million years ago.

Where the ranges of the two species overlap, such as in northern Punjab, Iran and Afghanistan, the phenotypic differences between them tend to decrease as a result of extensive crossbreeding between them.

The fertility of their hybrid has given rise to speculation that the Bactrian camel and the dromedary should be merged into a single species with two varieties.

The shaggy winter coat is shed extremely rapidly, with huge sections peeling off at once, appearing as if sloppily shorn.

The long eyelashes, along with the sealable nostrils, help to keep out dust in the frequent sandstorms which occur in their natural range.

Bactrian camels are exceptionally adept at withstanding wide variations in temperature, ranging from freezing cold to blistering heat.

When moving faster than a walking speed, they pace, by stepping forwards with both legs on the same side (as opposed to trotting, using alternate diagonals as done by most other quadrupeds).

With tough mouths that can withstand sharp objects such as thorns, they are able to eat plants that are dry, prickly, salty or bitter, and can ingest virtually any kind of vegetation.

When other nutrient sources are not available, these camels may feed on carcasses, gnawing on bones, skin, or various different kinds of flesh.

Bactrian camels belong to a fairly small group of animals that regularly eat snow to provide their water needs.

Animals living above the snowline may have to do this, as snow and ice can be the only forms of water during winter, and by doing so, their range is greatly enlarged.

For example, westerners from the Tarim Basin and elsewhere were depicted in numerous ceramic figurines of the Chinese Tang dynasty (618–907).

[citation needed] Bactrian camels were imported to the U.S. several times in the mid- to late 19th century, both by the U.S. military and by merchants and miners, looking for pack animals sturdier and hardier than horses and mules.

As a result, small feral herds of Bactrian camels existed during the late 19th century in the southwest deserts of the United States.

Colonel Manoj Batra, a veterinary officer of the Indian Army, stated that the double-humped camel "are best suited for these conditions.