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Giraffes

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All about Giraffes
Stephanie Sprague
ITT Technical Institute

All about Giraffes
Ever wonder about the different animals around the world? Ever wonder about their behaviors and features? This all has to do with zoology. Zoology is defined as the branch of biology devoted to the animals. Zoology can be viewed as a series of efforts to analyze and classify animals. Zoology basically explains everything having to do with the entire animal population. Zoology in an important field in the science world because it helps to explain all the different studies of animals.
One important and what I feel is the greatest animal studied in zoology is the giraffe also known as Giraffa camelopardalis. The giraffe is the tallest animal averaging seventeen feet. Giraffes usually weigh about 2,500 lbs. Giraffes along with their extremely tall bodies have tongues usually fifteen inches long. Both sexes have two or four short, blunt, skin-covered horns. The coat has chestnut brown blotches against a brown background, markings that blend with the many different trees. As a giraffe ages, its color grows a darker brown. Each animal has a unique set of markings. Giraffes have keen sense of smell, seeing, and fantastic eyesight. A giraffe’s lifespan is up to twenty-six years in the wild and thirty-six years in captivity. Giraffes live on dry savannas and open woodland. They range south in the Sahara and in large numbers only in East Africa. Giraffes are herbivores, they eat mainly on leaves from acacia, mimosa, and wild apricot trees.
Along with these interesting facts, scientists have discovered the giraffe’s different techniques for communication. Chemical communication is a powerful tool, particularly for ensuring reproduction, marking territory, and alerting prey against predators. A male giraffe, for instance, determines the best time to mate by nudging the female until she urinates and then checking the odor to determine if she is fertile. Communication is important among giraffes because it helps them to gather for good, care for their young, and mate. Most commonly, animal communication occurs between animals of the same species. Communication is important so the giraffes can survive. Scientists study communication of animals to determine more things about them.
Giraffes grow to nearly their full height by four years of age but gain weight until they are seven or eight. Males weigh up to 1,930 kg (4,250 pounds), females up to 1,180 kg (2,600 pounds). The tail may be a metre in length and has a long black tuft on the end; there is also a short black mane. Both sexes have a pair of horns, though males possess other bony protuberances on the skull. The back slopes downward to the hindquarters, a silhouette explained mainly by large muscles that support the neck; these muscles are attached to long spines on the vertebrae of the upper back. There are only seven neck (cervical) vertebrae, but they are elongated. This is an amazing fact seeing how their necks are so long. Thick-walled arteries in the neck have extra valves to counteract gravity when the head is up; when the giraffe lowers its head to the ground, special vessels at the base of the brain control blood pressure. The gait of the giraffe is a pace (both legs on one side move together). In a gallop it pushes off with the hind legs and the front legs come down almost together, but no two hooves touch the ground at the same time. The neck flexes so that balance is maintained. Speeds of 50 km (31 miles) per hour can be maintained for several kilometres, but 60 km (37 miles) per hour can be attained over short distances. Arabs say of a good horse that it can “outpace a giraffe.” (Herbison and George, 2014)
There are sundry facts about giraffes many people do not care to think about. They can go without water for weeks or months as a time. This is amazing because even humans can’t go one week without water. They spend sixteen to twenty hours eating a day. All giraffes do during their day is feast upon the many magnificent grasses and berries of the wild. Giraffes also stand up to sleep. It would be very difficult to support that much weight while sleeping. Giraffes have proven to be very interesting to many people of the world. Scientists that study the different animals can learn a lot. There are so many things to learn about the many different species of animals that roam the earth. Zoology has taught many things to everyone over the millions of years. Scientists have discovered numerous things about these giant beautiful beasts including: cellular organization, communication, and when they were first discovered. Giraffes are not only the prettiest but the most interesting animal on this planet.
References
Frame, L. W. (2014). Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis). Encyclopædia Britannica,
Imai, M., Schalk, L., Saalbach, H., & Okada, H. (2014). All Giraffes Have Female-Specific Properties: Influence of Grammatical Gender on Deductive Reasoning About Sex-Specific Properties in German Speakers. Cognitive Science, 38(3), 514-536. doi:10.1111/cogs.12074
Dendy, L. (1995). Giraffes up close. (cover story). Ranger Rick, 29(5), 20.

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