Northern giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis
— Where the name comes from
From the Arabic zarāfah, perhaps of African origin. The Latin specific name camelopardalis is the Roman attempt to describe the animal to someone who had never seen one: “camel-leopard”, the bearing of the first and the coat of the second.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Even-toed ungulates
- Habitat
- Wooded savannah, acacia bushland
- Range
- Eastern and southern Africa
- Size
- 4.3–5.7 m tall, 800–1,200 kg
- Diet
- Herbivore — acacia leaves gathered with a 45 cm tongue
- Lifespan
- 25 years in the wild
— Characteristics
- 01
The tallest land animal.
- 02
The neck has seven cervical vertebrae, exactly as ours does: they are simply enormous.
- 03
Sleeps about thirty minutes a day, in short instalments.
— What sets it apart
To push blood two metres above the heart, the giraffe runs a blood pressure twice ours. The problem is the reverse one: when it lowers its head to drink, the blood ought to crash into the skull. A net of elastic vessels at the base of the neck, the rete mirabile, absorbs the surge and gives it back slowly. And the skin of the legs is so taut that it works like a pilot’s compression stocking.
