Why do bulls have a hump?

Question

Camels have a hump as an adaptation to the heat. They store fat so that it minimizes the insulating effect the fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies. Why do buffaloes/ oxen/ bulls have a hump then? The climates they are found in, I assume, are not as hot as that of the camels.

Answer 1

5

Bison humps are made of muscles, huge muscles. According to this and these pages, bison use their heads for snowplowing. This hump provides head support. From this page, rhino humps are made from muscles, nuchal ligament, fat, and dermis. And from the page, probably fat quantity depends on the nutritional state of the animal.

I searched the nuchal ligament, the remarkable structure of hump according to the rhino page. This is a ligament that spans from the upper back vertebra to the neck vertebra and the skull. Can be found in humans too. Also, muscles of hump should be homologous to humans' notice that vertebras have spines not just for supporting ligaments they also for muscles. Human skeletons just don't have a vertebra with long big muscle connection points and huge neck/back muscles connecting huge bones, this is why we don't have a hump or an obvious large hump. And I think even camels do have slightly bigger muscular humps but theirs are covered with a big fat hump.

Bison skeleton and elongated spines support huge muscles and ligaments