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Scientific classification of girraffe
Kingdom ~ Animalia
Phylum ~ Chordata
Class ~ Mammalia
Order ~ Artiodactyla
Family ~ Giraffidae
Genus ~ Giraffa
Species ~ G. camelopardalis
Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and open woodlands. They prefer Acacieae, Commiphora, Combretum and open Terminalia woodlands over denser environments like Brachystegia woodlands.322 The Angolan giraffe can be found in desert environments. Giraffes browse on the twigs of trees, preferring those of the subfamily Acacieae and the genera Commiphora and Terminalia,which are important sources of calcium and protein to sustain the giraffe's growth rate. They also feed on shrubs, grass and fruit.324 A giraffe eats around 34 kg (75 lb) of foliage daily. When stressed, giraffes may chew the bark off branches. 325 Giraffes are also recorded to chew old bones. 102
During the wet season, food is abundant and giraffes are more spread out, while during the dry season, they gather around the remaining evergreen trees and bushes. Mothers tend to feed in open areas, presumably to make it easier to detect predators, although this may reduce their feeding efficiency. As a ruminant, the giraffe first chews its food, then swallows it for processing and then visibly passes the half-digested cud up the neck and back into the mouth to chew again. 78–79 The giraffe requires less food than many other herbivores because the foliage it eats has more concentrated nutrients and it has a more efficient digestive system.
The animal's faeces come in the form of small pellets.
When it has access to water, a giraffe drinks at intervals no longer than three days.
Giraffes have a great effect on the trees that they feed on, delaying the growth of young trees for some years and giving "waistlines" to too tall trees. Feeding is at its highest during the first and last hours of daytime. Between these hours, giraffes mostly stand and ruminate. Rumination is the dominant activity during the night, when it is mostly done lying down
The horns of male giraffe generally grow parallel
to each other or outwards at a slight angle. They
are robust and encircled (not tufted to a point)
with black hairs that become less conspicuous
with age as the horns are rounded and polished
by fighting.
The horns of male giraffe generally grow parallel
to each other or outwards at a slight angle. They
are robust and encircled (not tufted to a point)
with black hairs that become less conspicuous
with age as the horns are rounded and polished
by fighting. Yes, there most certainly is! Besides
Yes,males being more massive in all respects
with much thicker necks and larger,
heavier heads, the horns (or ossicones) are also markedly different. Those of males tend to be broader and more heavily built (though not longer) than those of females. In addition, they are usually devoid of skin at the top inmales. In older males this ring of hair is much shorter or absent due to hair loss and fighting. The ossicones of females are far narrower, often point slightly in toward each other and are tufted with long, blackish hair to a point so that no exposed bone is visible. Males also quite conspicuously have the penis
mid-belly (in common with most larger hoofed mammals, making access to the vulva easier when mating). This reveals a marked bump that can be seen from a distance. Females on the other hand have the four teats tucked in tightly between the hind legs so that the belly is unadorned. On average, mature males tend to be about two feet taller. older, more mature specimens anyway. This reveals shiny, rounded domes of bone surrounded by a ring of blackish hair that tends to stand up in a ringed crest (not tufted to a point) in younger
Female giraffe have narrow horns (ossic0nes) that
are totally covered at the tips with small, pointed tufts of black hair. Females have a more rounded belly with no bump at all. How many types of giraffe are there?
Many people will often debate the number of different giraffe in Africa. In fact. there is actually only one species, and it is divided into a number of different subspecies based upon various colour and partern variations that are no doubt the result of diftering geographical locations (separations). T hey are all, however, able to interbreed successtully to produce viable ottspring, and are theretore merely races (subspecies). At present, nine major races are generally considered and accepted - although there is no complete consensus on this and some scientists recognise more and some less. The giratte is conhned to the African continent, and the races are therefore distributed wherever populations are widely separated or exposed to dittering conditions. These races and their geographical occurrence are as tollows: .Southern atrican giratte occurs in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe,
Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland
Thornicroft's giratfe occurs in eastern Zambia
Rothschild's or ugandan or baringo giratte - OcCurs in Uganda and north Central
Kenya. Angolan or smokey giratfe-occurs in Angola and western Zambia
Masai or kilimanjaro giratfe - ocCurs in central to southern Kenya and in Tanzania
Nubian girafte -Occurs in north-eastern Congo and castern Sudan
Kordofan giratte - occurs in Sudan
.Reticulated or somali giratte - occurs in Somalia, Ethiopia and north-east Kenya
West african or nigerian giratfe occurs in Chad
Why do the young not hurt themselves when being dropped at birth?
Accidents can happen, and some young may indeed be injured at
birth in the fall of about two metres from the uterus to the ground.The female will bend her legs slightly
to lessen the fall but it is still high enough to cause the umbilical cord usually to snap (and they say the New Zealanders invented bungee
jumping!). As with other ungulates (hoofed animals) the young giraffe is born with the neck folded down along the body, so that the feet emerge first, shortly followed by the head. The legs are so long and the young so large (approximately two metres tall and with a mass of up to 100 kg) that the drop is not as much as it appears. The slight thump upon hitting the ground, far from injuring the animals, helps kick-start the lungs. Due to a high centre of gravity because of the lon Young giraffe spend a lot more time than adults hying down and resting. Inquisistive by nature, this mature bull is investigatinga young calf left resting while its mother is foraging. The young are very wobbly on their feet at first. This makes them more vulnera DIC to most other ungulates to predation in the first few days.
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