Those canines are "primarily used to chew up wood and other tough foods" as per one of the articles, but male adult camels may also use those to bite opponents when fighting with each other for territory / mates.
"Someone once described them as a Sarlacc pit from Star Wars" ... definitely a fitting description.
Huh. I guess the camel mouth pictures I saw before have all their teeth extracted or something? Second pic absolutely looked like that of a large cat pic to the untrained eye (mine)
Fron what I've read, there are differences in breeds (alpacas for example have very small canines compared to other species), females have smaller canines than males (on average), and they're also usually removed / clipped for domesticated camelids (example with an alpaca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyXSrIUkFNg)
PS: bonus video to show that canines are not the strangest thing about a camel's mouth: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=9NC2saE5MbQ
...it actually seems to love munching on spiny things, look at him go 😍 😱
I know, but vegan extremists have often pointed out that because our teeth are shaped more like a horse's than a lions, that we must be herbivores. Which is fucking stupid for several reasons.
One of them being that horses are opportunistic meat eaters and will eat meat when given the chance, they just merely aren't aggressive or combat suited enough to hunt for it themselves.