A long, prehensile, sticky tongue enables a giraffe to feed on hard-to-reach leaves, the mouth is protected against thorns – strip leaves between lower teeth and hardened upper dental pad. They are browsers, mostly leaves and shoots; also, seeds, pods, and bark, they prefer Acacia species and fill up on seed pods in Autumn to build body fat that gets them through the cold winter. Ossicone “horns” are only found in giraffe. Their heart is 60cm long and weighs about 11 kilograms and numerous one-way valves in the jugular vein and its offshoots prevent blood from flowing back to the brain. when the head is lowered. They walk alternating two right limbs, then two left (like camels). Gallop alternating two front and two hind limbs (like rabbits). They have excellent vision; they gain information from each other by visual monitoring of behaviour of others in the herd. There is evidence for vocalizations beyond human hearing range; growing evidence of infrasonic vocalizations/communication. Some giraffe “hum” at night. Pregnancy is about 15 months; they give birth standing up which breaks the umbilicus and newborn calves are close to 2m tall. Predators include Lion, hyaena and people. Giraffe can live up to 28 years but most often 18-20. All our giraffe belong to a regional zoological breeding programme.
Quick Facts
Diet
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Colour
Vary from beige , tan, cream to black
Weight
10-15kgs
Lifespan
7-10 in the wild but up to 16 in captivity
Predators
Humans, crocodiles, birds of prey take pups.
Conservation Status
Endangered
Distribution
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Habitat
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Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.