Far-Reaching Facts on Giraffes

• The scientific name (Giraffa camelopardalis) literally means "a camel's body wearing a leopard's coat." Although it is a ruminant, it is unrelated to Bovids and is descended from deer.
• There are at least nine different races of giraffe. The reticulated giraffe, which has deeply colored spots with bright white lines around them, lives in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
• Not only is the giraffe the tallest land animal, but it is also the fastest growing herbivore.
• Large males may weigh up to 1900 kg (4200 lb). Females are smaller, rarely reaching half of that weight. Its neck can be as long as 1.5 m (5 ft) but it contains only seven vertebrae, the same number as most other mammals. It can extend its tongue as much as 45 cm (18 in) in order to wrap it around leaves of trees.
• Both male and female giraffes have a pair of bony horns, permanently covered by skin and ending in a tuft of black hair. The skull of a male continues to deposit layers of new bone throughout life and, as a result, its head becomes progressively heavier and more angular.
• To support its elongated skeleton, a giraffe's calcium need is formidably large. This may explain why it prefers to feed on legumes, especially acacia leaves, which contain three times as much calcium as grass.
• Because the high pressure needed to pump blood up to its head could cause brain damage when the head is lowered, a giraffe has a series of valves in its neck veins to ensure that blood always flows from the head back toward the heart, even when this means going against gravity.
• Males engage in a behavior known as necking. It starts when two males approach each other and begin to rub and intertwine their necks to assess each other's strength. When this is not enough, they will exchange blows with their heads.
• Females have a gestation period of almost 15 months, one of the longest in the animal kingdom. Over 50 percent of newborns are killed by hyenas, lions and leopards during their first month. In the wild, their maximum life span is about 25 years.

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