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As the tallest animals in the world, giraffes are the gentle giants of the jungle.
Towering between 14 to 19 feet tall with their long neck and legs, giraffes may be one of
the first animals you learn about as a kid.
Native to the savannas of Sub-Saharan Africa, this distinct anatomy makes giraffes stick
out like a sore thumb in the animal kingdom.
Aside from their height and looks, giraffes’ strange behavior also makes them stand out,
literally.
To ward off predators, wild giraffes sleep and give birth while standing upright.
What else is there to know about the world’s tallest animals?
Watch on to find out.
Giraffes were once called "camel-leopards."
It may sound like the most unlikely combination of animals, but it’s true.
When the first giraffe was presented to Julius Caesar in 46 BC, the Romans thought it was
a camel-leopard hybrid.
They even named it Camelopardalis, after the Greek word kamelos (camel) and pardalis (leopard).
A giraffe's tongue is 20 inches long.
A fact that may get you tongue-tied is that giraffe tongues can reach up to 20 inches long.
Giraffe tongues are usually colored black, blue or purple for protection against the sun's UV rays.
A giraffe's spots are like human fingerprints.
Aside from having seven vertebrae in the neck like humans, the spots in a giraffe’s body
are much like human fingerprints.
All giraffes have different coat patterns, so no giraffe is the same.
Giraffes only sleep 30 minutes a day.
Move aside, Team No Sleep.
To protect themselves from predators, giraffes in the wild learn to sleep for only 30 minutes a day.
If you think that’s extreme, a giraffe’s total sleeping time is also spread throughout
the day in quick naps.
However, captive giraffes can snooze more than 4 hours a day.
Male giraffes sample a female’s pee during mating season.
Among unique lifestyle choices, male giraffes can test a female’s fertility by tasting her urine.
Known as the Flehmen sequence, males would take mouthful of a female’s urine to know
if she’d be a good mate or not.
By doing so, the male giraffe can distinguish whether the female is in heat.
Giraffes are the third-heaviest animals in the world.
After elephants and rhinos, giraffes are the 3rd heaviest animals in the world.
A young giraffe can weigh more than 150 lbs.
On average, an adult giraffe approximately weighs 1,765 lbs.
In some cases, other species of giraffe can be as massive as 4,255 lbs.
A group of giraffes is called a "tower."
A name fitting for the world’s tallest animal, a group of giraffes is called a “tower.”
A giraffe's heart weighs around 25 lbs.
While the human heart only weighs around 300 grams, the heart of a giraffe can weigh 25 lbs,
making it the biggest heart of any land mammal.
The giraffe’s heart pumps 60 liters of blood in their body every minute.
Necking is the most violent experience for giraffes.
Necking is the proper term for “giraffe-fighting.”
In a giraffe’s relatively chill environment, it is the most aggressive experience they
are most likely to get in.
Necking usually comes with head-butts, jousting, kicking, and biting.
The Reticulated giraffe is the most common in the world.
If you’ve ever seen a giraffe at a zoo, there’s a very big chance that it was a
Reticulated giraffe.
Coming from a peninsula called the Horn of Africa, the Reticulated giraffe is the most
common giraffe subspecies.
Reticulated giraffes are characterized by coats of large, polygonal, liver-colored spots
outlined by a group of bright-white lines.
The spots can often appear in deep reddish-orange, which can also cover their legs.
Giraffes consume over 35 kilos of food per day.
Since adult giraffes can only get a few servings with each bite, they spend most of their time
eating to meet their caloric need of around 35 kilos.
Aside from their size, wild giraffes need so much food since they spend most of their
time standing up.
Giraffes are not territorial.
Giraffes may look a little awkward, but they’re actually social butterflies.
Unlike other species, they aren’t known to be territorial at all.
A tower of giraffes typically has 10 to 20 members without a dominant leader in their herd.
Community-wise, tower members are usually free to come and go as they wish.
Giraffes make sounds and noises.
If someone asks you what a giraffe sounds like,
not knowing might send you into an existential crisis.
However, giraffes make a wide range of sounds, including hisses, snorts, whistle-like cries,
and low-frequency noises that can’t be heard by the human ear.
In other words, giraffes have vocal cords.
Only young giraffes make most of these sounds, since they’re less cautious.
Giraffe horns are called ossicones.
Both male and female giraffes have ossicones, which were formed from ossified cartilage
covered in skin.
Giraffe hooves are almost the same size as a dinner plate.
With a diameter of 30 centimeters, a giraffe’s hooves are almost as big as a dinner plate.
These big hooves protect them from sinking into loose sand, regardless of their massive weight.
Some people eat giraffes.
In some African regions, people kill giraffes for their meat.
In those areas, natives would take any kind of meat they can find to survive.
Giraffe meat is said to have a natural sweetness that may not appeal to everybody’s taste.
Giraffes are not entirely defenseless.
Don’t let their gentle nature fool you; a threatened giraffe can and will curb stomp
you into the next life.
One kick from a giraffe’s 6-foot legs can cause severe damage and even death to predators
and humans who get too close.
Giraffes don’t drink water often.
Most of a giraffe’s water intake comes from the plants they eat, so they only need to
gulp water once every few days.
A giraffe’s neck is “too short” to reach the ground.
You wouldn’t call a 7-foot neck short, but giraffes have to spread their front legs out
to drink water from the ground.
World Giraffe Day was established in 2014.
The World Giraffe Day is a yearly event initiated by the Giraffe Conservation Federation.
Essentially, the event celebrates the longest-necked animal on the longest day of the year, which
is June 21st.
Giraffes only have one official species.
Today, the International Union for Conservation of Nature recognizes giraffes as one species
with 9 subspecies.
However, a 2007 study on giraffe genetics advised that there should be 6 species instead:
the West African, Rothschild’s, Reticulated, Masai, Angolan, and South African giraffe.
White giraffes are a product of rare pigmentation.
A White giraffe is a product of leucism - a genetic mutation which prevents an animal’s
skin cells from pigmentation, while letting other organs stay dark-colored.
It’s different from albinism, and a white giraffe rarely occurs in nature.
Unfortunately, poaching and illegal trade lessens their numbers even more.
A running giraffe may appear to be moving in slow-motion.
If you observe a running giraffe in the wild, it might look like it’s running in slow motion.
Don’t be fooled, though.
Giraffes have the longest stride of any land mammal, so this “slow-mo” movement can
reach speeds of 60 km/h.
Unlike horses, giraffes run by moving both legs on the same side of their body together,
which can play a visual trick on the typical bystander.
The Angolan Giraffe only exists in 4 African countries.
Found in Northern Namibia, South-western Zambia, Botswana, and Western Zimbabwe, the Angolan
Giraffe subspecies has big brown blotches with edges that are relatively notched or
have angular extensions.
Its spotting pattern stretches down to its legs, but not the upper part of its face.
The South African Giraffe is only found in 5 African countries.
The South African giraffe is also known as the Cape giraffe.
Like the name suggests, it’s a subspecies of giraffe native to South Africa, Mozambique,
Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
South African giraffes have spots with star-like extensions on a light tan base, all the way
down to the hooves.
Currently, the estimated population of South African Giraffe is at 31,500 individuals in
the wild.
The Rothschild's giraffe got its name from Walter Rothschild.
The Rothschild’s giraffe is named after Walter Rothschild, a British banker, politician,
and zoologist.
Known for its unique coat, the Rothschild’s giraffe sports dark orange and brown patches
with areas of beige, and no markings on its lower legs.
Giraffe calves nurse from their mother for the first 4-6 months.
Baby giraffes or calves only breastfeed for the first few months.
From the 7th month onwards, the calves begin to eat leaves.
However, if the calves still can’t reach the leaves from the trees, their mothers will
pull leaves off and feed them to them.
Pretty cute, isn’t it?
The Masai giraffe is the biggest subspecies of giraffe.
Found in Kenya and Tanzania, it has distinctive, jagged, irregular, star-like blotches that
extend to their hooves.
The Masai giraffe got its name in honor of Herr von Tippelskirch- the member of a German
scientific expedition in East Africa.
The West African Giraffe came close to extinction.
Also known as the Nigerien giraffe, the West African giraffe stands out for its light-colored spots.
The Nigerien giraffe population fluctuates based on seasonal migration.
In the 1990s, its population went as low as 50 individual giraffes.
However, with the help of the government’s programs,
over 450 wild giraffes have been rehabilitated.
The giraffe's individual numbers continue to plummet.
Thirty years ago, there were around 150,000 giraffes that roamed the savannas.
However, as of today, the number of wild giraffes still roaming their habitats has been cut
down by 40%-50%.
Giraffes are endangered due to 4 main reasons.
Human-wildlife conflict, meat consumption, illegal wildlife trade, and the expansion
of human agriculture all contribute to giraffes’ dwindling population.
For all their weird quirks, giraffes are among the most unique creatures in the animal kingdom.
We should all do what we can to make sure future generations can still witness and learn
about them, like we did as kids.
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