THE AFRICAN GIRAFFE

THE AFRICAN GIRAFFE

story by Wanyua Mary 

An African Giraffe at Yatch Club Naivasha.

Giraffes are the world’s tallest mammal, their extremely elongated neck and excellent vision helps them to spot predators from far away. The beautiful pattern on the giraffes coat provides camouflage in its natural habitat of light bush and scrubs. Each giraffe species can be distinguished by its distinctive patterns. The most endangered giraffe species is the Rothschild’s giraffe with less than 40 of them left in Northern Kenya and Uganda.

Giraffes’ are believed to have a very large heart which can weigh up to 10 kg and specialized veins to enable it to pump blood up its head and in the entire body. In the upper neck, a complex pressure-regulation system called the rete mirabile prevents excess blood flow to the brain when the giraffe lowers its head to drink water.

 An average giraffe is approximately 1,200 kg and has a wild lifespan of 25 years. A giraffe mainly feeds on leaves and shoots especially from the acacia trees. A giraffe’s tongue is almost half a metre in length and is normally sticky for browsing.

It has been estimated that the giraffe's proportionally larger limbs have very high rotational inertia and this make rapid swimming motions strenuous. A swimming giraffe would be forced into a posture where the neck is sub-horizontal and since it has thorax that is pulled downwards by the large limbs it would not be able to move the neck and limbs synchronously as it would be able to do when moving on land. This may further hamper the animal's ability to move its limbs effectively underwater. The long limbs make the giraffe moves in a slow well calculated cut-walk motion.

Giraffes are difficult and dangerous prey. They defend themselves with powerful kicks which, when well-placed, can kill a predator. Most attacks on giraffes occur at watering holes, when the bent-over animals are at their most vulnerable and least attentive. Lions are the only predators which pose a serious threat to an adult giraffe. When hunting giraffes, lions try to knock the lanky animal off its feet and pull it down.