81 Fun Facts About Giraffes

Why is a giraffe's neck so long?

Each neck vertebra is over 28 cm long, and together they make up 52–54 percent of the vertebral column.

Giraffes are sometimes seen chewing which unlikely item, apparently for its calcium and phosphorus?

Old bones are chewed, it is thought, for their calcium and phosphorus, a habit called osteophagia; whether a giraffe can digest enough bone to benefit is still unclear.

Instead of front teeth, a giraffe's upper jaw has what?

A hard palate, or dental pad, stands in for upper front teeth, as in other cud-chewers: the lower incisors press leaves against it and strip them from the branch.

Roughly how much does an adult giraffe's heart weigh?

11 kg (25 lbs) is the figure usually quoted; the heart's muscular wall grows unusually thick, so each beat can push blood all the way up the neck to the brain.

Wild giraffes live only in Africa, south of which desert?

The Sahara marks the limit: giraffes survive in scattered pockets of sub-Saharan Africa, from Chad in the north to South Africa, and have vanished from most of West Africa.

What animal is considered the closest living relative to the giraffe?

The okapi is the giraffe's only living relative, yet its striped legs fooled early naturalists, who first took the shy Congo forest animal for a kind of horse or zebra.

The English word 'giraffe' came through Italian from 'zarafa', a word in which language?

Arabic zarafa passed into Italian as giraffa and reached English in the 1590s; where Arabic got the word is uncertain, though dictionaries suspect an African language.

How can researchers tell individual wild giraffes apart without tagging them?

By their coat patterns: no two giraffes carry the same markings, so a photograph of the patches identifies an animal much as a fingerprint identifies a person.

Besides walking, what is the only other gait a giraffe uses?

Galloping is a giraffe's only gait beyond the walk: it has no trot, and as it runs the long neck swings back and forth to keep the animal balanced.

What are the skin-covered, horn-like knobs on a giraffe's head called?

Ossicones are knobs of ossified cartilage that stay covered in skin for life, unlike a deer's antlers, which end up as bare bone and are shed every year.

What conservation status did the IUCN Red List give the giraffe in 2016?

The IUCN assessed the giraffe as Vulnerable in 2016, after wild numbers fell from an estimated 155,000 in 1985 to roughly 97,500.

Roughly how long is a giraffe's tongue?

About 45 cm (18 in) of tongue lets a giraffe reach around acacia thorns to the leaves behind them; it can even tip its head right back to feed on branches directly overhead.

A walking giraffe swings both legs on one side forward together, a gait known as what?

Pacing moves the two right legs, then the two left, which gives a giraffe its rolling, swaying walk; camels are the other well-known animals that move this way.

How do giraffes typically give birth?

While standing up: the calf emerges front feet first and drops more than a metre to the ground, a fall that snaps the umbilical cord and jolts it into taking its first big breath.

Which insects live in whistling-thorn acacias and swarm the tongue and face of a browsing giraffe?

Ants nest in the tree's swollen thorns and feed on its nectar; in return they pour out to bite any giraffe or elephant that starts to browse.

Under the traditional one-species classification, what is the giraffe's scientific name?

The giraffe is Giraffa camelopardalis; Linnaeus first described it in 1758 as Cervus camelopardalis, placing it among the deer.

Which of these is a major predator of adult giraffes in the wild?

Lions are the main predators of adult giraffes; hyenas, leopards and wild dogs go for the calves instead, and about half of all calves die in their first year.

About how long is a giraffe's pregnancy?

15 months, roughly 400 to 460 days, produces a calf so well developed that it is up on its feet within about an hour of being born.

Roughly how fast can a giraffe sprint over a short distance?

60 km/h (37 mph) is its top speed over a short dash, and it can hold about 50 km/h for several kilometres; that pace is one of its main defences against predators.

About how much does an average adult male giraffe weigh?

1,200 kg (2,600 lbs) is an adult male's average, about 360 kg more than a female's; his skull alone keeps adding bone throughout life, growing heavier and knobblier with age.

Where are a giraffe's eyes positioned, giving it a broad visual field from its height?

On the sides of the head, a giraffe's eyes take in a wide sweep of country: herd members far apart keep track of each other by sight, and when one stares into the distance the rest turn to look.

As a male giraffe ages, what usually happens to the patches on his coat?

They darken, in some males from brown to almost coal-black between about seven and ten years old, so the shade of a male's coat is a rough guide to his age.

What is the primary purpose of giraffe "necking"?

To fight for dominance or mates: males brace their legs and swing their heads like clubs, and a hard enough blow can knock a rival clean off his feet.

Which order of even-toed hoofed mammals includes giraffes, cattle and hippos?

Artiodactyla turned out to hold an unlikely branch: DNA shows whales evolved from within the group, which is why some biologists now call it Cetartiodactyla.

How does a giraffe mother typically defend her calf from an approaching predator?

Delivering powerful kicks: the mother stands over her calf and lashes out with front and back legs, and a single well-aimed kick can be deadly.

Giraffes are native to which type of biomes?

Savannahs and woodlands suit a browser that needs scattered trees; when the dry season strips most of them bare, giraffes crowd around whatever evergreens are left.

A mother giraffe searches for a lost calf with what call?

Bellowing is how a mother calls for a strayed calf, which answers by bleating or mewing; adults are otherwise so quiet that many people think giraffes have no voice at all.

Roughly how tall is a giraffe calf at birth?

1.8 m (6 ft) is typical, as tall as a grown man on day one, and calves keep growing fast, which soon makes them harder for predators to take.

The dark colour of a giraffe's tongue is thought to protect it against what?

Sunburn is the usual suggestion, since the tongue spends hours a day stretched out in the African sun as the animal feeds; it remains an idea, not a proven fact.

Besides habitat loss, what is a main cause of the giraffe's decline?

Poaching for bushmeat ranks with habitat loss as a chief threat: wire snares catch many adults, and giraffes have already vanished from countries such as Senegal and Mauritania.

Within hours of being born, a giraffe calf can already do what?

A calf can run around within hours of its birth; even so, it spends much of its first weeks lying still and hidden while its mother feeds some distance away.

Roughly how tall can a fully grown male giraffe stand?

5.5 m (18 ft) is a big male's height, about a metre more than a female's, and it puts leaves within reach that no other browser except the elephant can touch.

Giraffatitan, whose name means 'giraffe titan', was what kind of animal?

A sauropod dinosaur of the Late Jurassic, about 150 million years ago: Giraffatitan was first described as a species of Brachiosaurus and only later given a name of its own.

When is giraffe feeding at its peak?

Giraffes feed mostly during the first and last hours of daylight; between those hours they mostly stand and chew the cud, and rumination is the dominant activity at night.

What does the term "camelopard", an archaic name for the giraffe, refer to?

Camel-like shape and leopard spots gave the camelopard its name: Greek joined the two animals' names, and people once believed the giraffe really was part camel, part leopard.

Which part of the giraffe have people long prized for weaving into bracelets, belts and thread?

Its tail hair is long, wiry and strong enough for bracelets, belts and thread, a demand so lasting that giraffes are still killed for their tails alone.

Which French naturalist argued that giraffes' necks grew long by stretching for leaves over many generations?

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck used the giraffe in 1809 to argue that traits acquired in life are inherited; natural selection later replaced the idea, but the giraffe stayed its textbook example.

The hump on a giraffe's back is formed by the long spines of which vertebrae?

Thoracic vertebrae carry the tall spines that form the hump: the big muscles that hold up the neck and head anchor to them, which is why a giraffe's back slopes so steeply.

How does a male giraffe check whether a female is ready to mate?

Sampling her urine tells him: he takes some in his mouth, then curls back his upper lip to draw the scent over a sensory organ, a grimace called the flehmen response.

What do biologists call the calf groups that giraffe mothers take turns guarding?

Crèches form when calves are a few weeks old: one mother stays on watch while the rest wander off to feed and drink, returning by nightfall to nurse.

Giraffes can go days without drinking because they get most of their water from what?

The plants they eat are juicy enough that in the wet season a giraffe may not need to drink at all; in the dry season it visits water about every three days.

What is the purpose of the dark tuft of hair at the end of a giraffe's tail?

The dark tuft at the tip of the tail is used to sweep away insects; the tail itself is 80–100 cm long and curls up when the animal gallops.

Rothschild's giraffe is named after Walter Rothschild, a zoologist born into a family famous for what?

Banking made the family fortune, but Walter cared more for animals: he built a vast private museum at Tring and once drove a carriage pulled by zebras to Buckingham Palace.

Roughly how much blood pressure must a giraffe's heart generate compared with a human's?

About double a human's pressure is what it takes to push blood up the long neck to the brain; one-way valves in the jugular veins stop it surging back when the head goes down.

How many vertebrae hold up a giraffe's neck?

7, exactly as in a human neck: almost every mammal has the same count of neck vertebrae, however long or short its neck happens to be.

The tight skin on a giraffe's lower legs works like which piece of human equipment?

The thick, tight skin on a giraffe's lower legs acts like a pilot's G-suit, squeezing the vessels so blood does not pool in the feet under the animal's high blood pressure.

The reticulated giraffe lives mainly in which country?

Kenya holds nearly all reticulated giraffes, with a few in Ethiopia and Somalia; their numbers have fallen so far that the IUCN listed them as Endangered in 2018.

What is the collective noun for a group of giraffes?

A tower is the collective noun, though real giraffe groups are loose affairs: apart from mothers with their young, members drift in and out from one day to the next.

To reach water on the ground, what does a giraffe typically do?

It spreads its front legs apart, or bends its knees, to get its mouth down; the pose leaves it exposed, so giraffes at a waterhole take turns keeping watch.

Which birds ride on giraffes and pick ticks from their skin?

Oxpeckers ride on giraffes picking off ticks, and when something alarms the birds they hiss, which can alert the animals they ride; they also sip blood from wounds, so they may not be pure helpers.

In 2025 the IUCN formally recognised how many separate species of giraffe?

4 species replaced the single one long recognised, after DNA studies showed the groups had bred apart for so long that they no longer count as one animal.

Nairobi's Giraffe Centre was set up in 1979 to breed which rare giraffe?

Rothschild's giraffe was in trouble when Jock and Betty Leslie-Melville took two calves onto their land outside Nairobi; giraffes bred there have since been released into Kenyan parks.

Which Roman leader showed off the first giraffe seen in Rome, at his games in 46 BC?

Julius Caesar put the animal on show at his games in Rome; after the empire fell, live giraffes all but vanished from Europe for centuries.

The teething toy Sophie the Giraffe originated in which country?

France launched Sophie more than 60 years ago from a toy workshop near Paris, and she became a national fixture: her maker calls her a 'Proustian madeleine' for almost every French family.

A 2015 study found that captive giraffes make what sound at night?

Humming, low and sustained, turned up only in night recordings at three European zoos; the hum may help members of a herd keep in touch when they cannot see one another.

Besides camouflage, what other function are a giraffe's coat patches believed to serve?

Regulating body temperature: each dark patch sits over a dense web of blood vessels, so the patches may work as windows through which the animal sheds heat.

When a giraffe lowers its head, what structure in the upper neck prevents excess blood flow to the brain?

A rete mirabile, a tight net of small vessels below the brain, soaks up the surge of blood when the head drops and helps hold the pressure steady as it swings back up.

In 2014, which zoo drew worldwide protest for culling a healthy young giraffe named Marius?

Copenhagen Zoo put Marius down in February 2014 to avoid inbreeding, despite an online petition signed by thousands, then dissected him in public and fed the meat to its carnivores.

A giraffe's tongue is described as prehensile, meaning it can do what?

Prehensile means able to grasp foliage, or anything else, by wrapping around it: the tongue curls round a branch and picks the leaves off with surprising delicacy.

Melman, the hypochondriac giraffe, appears in which animated film series?

Madagascar (2005) casts Melman, voiced by David Schwimmer, as a zoo giraffe bound for a reserve by ship; his crate falls overboard and washes up on the island with three friends.

April the giraffe's 2017 birth was livestreamed from a park in which US state?

New York's Animal Adventure Park streamed April's pen for weeks; YouTube briefly pulled the feed for 'nudity and sexual content', then restored it, and more than a million people watched the birth live.

Which giraffe is known for jagged, leaf-shaped blotches?

The Masai giraffe's jagged blotches are often likened to oak leaves; its numbers are falling, and the IUCN now lists it as Endangered.

How do an adult male giraffe's head knobs differ from a female's?

Adult males' head knobs are bald on top, the hair rubbed away by years of sparring, whereas females and young keep thin knobs topped with tufts of hair.

About how much can a newborn giraffe weigh?

100 kg (220 lb) is about the top weight for a newborn, more than most adult humans; for its first days the mother keeps it to herself, nuzzling and sniffing it as the two learn each other's scent.

Why are zebras and antelope thought to graze close to giraffes?

Giraffes spot predators first, or so it seems: other grazers appear to treat them as lookouts, and when a giraffe herd takes fright and bolts, the animals nearby bolt too.

Angolan giraffes roam Etosha National Park in which southern African country?

Namibia's Etosha is a stronghold of the Angolan giraffe, one of the few kinds whose numbers are rising: the IUCN rates it Least Concern while most others are threatened.

What is an adult male giraffe called?

A bull is the male and a cow the female; older bulls live mostly alone, roaming from herd to herd in search of females that are ready to mate.

What is the name of the giraffe mascot of Toys "R" Us?

Geoffrey the Giraffe has fronted Toys "R" Us since 1965 and outlasted its stores: when the chain closed its American shops in 2018, a planned auction of the mascot was called off and the brand kept him.

What is the Swahili word for giraffe?

Twiga is Swahili for giraffe; the same language gave The Lion King its hero, since simba is simply the Swahili word for lion.

Which surrealist painter depicted giraffes with burning manes and saw them as a masculine symbol?

Salvador Dalí put a giraffe in flames in the background of The Burning Giraffe (1937); he called it 'the masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster' and took it for a premonition of war.

In 1827 Egypt's ruler Muhammad Ali sent the giraffe Zarafa as a gift to which French king?

Charles X received Zarafa in the summer of 1827, and Paris went giraffe-mad: spotted fabrics were all the rage and women piled their hair into towering styles 'à la girafe'.

How did the giraffe Zarafa get from the port of Marseille to Paris in 1827?

She walked the whole way in 41 days with a naturalist at her side, and the exercise suited her: she arrived stronger and glossier than she had set out.

In the 1480s the Sultan of Egypt sent a live giraffe to which ruler of Florence?

Lorenzo de' Medici got his giraffe in 1487, a gift meant to win Florence's backing; no living giraffe reached Europe again for about 340 years.

A giraffe's hoof is about as wide as which everyday object?

A dinner plate, about 30 cm across, is the usual comparison; hooves that broad spread the great weight of the tallest animal on land.

The life-size Dabous giraffes, made thousands of years ago, are among the world's largest examples of what?

Rock engravings: the two giraffes, the larger over five metres tall, were cut into a sandstone outcrop when the land around them, now desert, was far greener.

In Tswana star lore from Botswana, which star pattern is seen as giraffes?

The Southern Cross is a cross only to European eyes: Tswana, Sotho and Venda sky-watchers call its bright stars Dithutlwa, 'the giraffes', some of them male and some female.

The giraffe is the national animal of which country?

The giraffe is Tanzania's national animal; it is protected by law there, and unauthorised killing can lead to imprisonment.

The Chinese people associated Zheng He's 1414 giraffe with which mythical creature?

The qilin, an auspicious beast of Chinese legend, is what the Ming court took the giraffe for, and the link stuck: Japanese and Korean still use one word for both animals.

The pale West African giraffe now survives in the wild in only which country?

Niger shelters the last West African giraffes; down to fewer than 100 animals in the early 1990s, the herd has since grown to several hundred.

Besides walking back and forth, which repetitive habit is common in zoo giraffes?

Licking inanimate objects such as walls and fences is the commonest habit, thought to arise because zoo meals take far less tongue-work than stripping leaves from branches all day.

Umm Nyolokh, a Humr drink made from giraffe liver and marrow, is said to cause what?

Umm Nyolokh is said to bring hallucinations of giraffes, which the Humr of Kordofan interpret as the animals' ghosts; writer Richard Rudgley speculated the drink may contain DMT.