Meet The Tallest Animal in The World !!!
Giraffe
Taxonomy
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class : Mammalia
Order : Artiodactyla
Family : Giraffidae
Genus : Giraffa
Etymology
The name "giraffe"
has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarāfah perhaps borrowed from the animal's Somali name geri. The Arab name is translated as
"fast-walker".There were several Middle English spellings, such as jarraf, ziraph, and gerfauntz. The Italian form giraffa arose in the 1590s. The modern English form developed
around 1600 from the French girafe"Camelopard" is an archaic English name for the
giraffe deriving from the Ancient Greek for camel and leopard, referring to its camel-like shape and its leopard-like colouring.
Behavior and Ecology
Habitat and feeding
A Masai giraffe extending its tongue to
feed, in Tanzania. Its tongue, lips and palate are
tough enough to deal with sharp thorns in trees.
Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and open woodlands. They prefer Acacieae, Commiphora, Combretum and open Terminalia woodlands
over denser environments like Brachystegia woodlands. The
Angolan giraffe can be found in desert environments. Giraffes browse on
the twigs of trees, preferring trees of the subfamily Acacieae and the
genera Commiphora and Terminalia, which are
important sources of calcium and protein to sustain the giraffe's growth rate. They
also feed on shrubs, grass and fruit.A giraffe eats around 34 kg
(75 lb) of foliage daily.[45] When stressed, giraffes may chew the
bark off branches. Although herbivorous, the giraffe has been known to
visit carcasses and lick dried meat off bones.
During the wet season, food is abundant and
giraffes are more spread out, while during the dry season, they gather around
the remaining evergreen trees and bushes. Mothers tend to feed in open
areas, presumably to make it easier to detect predators, although this may
reduce their feeding efficiency. As a ruminant, the giraffe first chews its
food, then swallows it for processing and then visibly passes the half-digested
cud up the neck and back into the mouth to chew again. It is common for a
giraffe to salivate while feeding. The giraffe requires less food than many
other herbivores because the foliage it eats has more concentrated nutrients
and it has a more efficient digestive system. The animal's faeces come in
the form of small pellets. When it has access to water, a giraffe drinks at
intervals no longer than three days.
Giraffes have a great effect on the trees
that they feed on, delaying the growth of young trees for some years and giving
"waistlines" to trees that are too tall. Feeding is at its
highest during the first and last hours of daytime. Between these hours,
giraffes mostly stand and ruminate. Rumination is the dominant activity during
the night, when it is mostly done lying down.
Social life
Gathering of female South
African giraffes in Tswalu
Kalahari Reserve, South Africa. These animals commonly
gather in herds.
Giraffes are usually found in groups that
vary in size and composition according to ecological, anthropogenic, temporal,
and social factors. Traditionally, the composition of these groups had
been described as open and ever-changing. For research purposes, a
"group" has been defined as "a collection of individuals that
are less than a kilometre apart and moving in the same general direction. More
recent studies have found that giraffes have long-term social associations and
may form groups or pairs based on kinship, sex or other factors. These groups
may regularly associate with one another in larger communities or
sub-communities within a fission–fusion
society. The number of giraffes in a group can range up to 66
individuals.
Giraffe groups tend to be sex-segregated although mixed-sex groups
made of adult females and young males are known to occur. Particularly stable
giraffe groups are those made of mothers and their young which can last
weeks or months. Social cohesion in these groups is maintained by the
bonds formed between calves. Female association appears to be based
on space-use and individuals may
be matrilineally related. In
general, females are more selective than males in who they associate with in
regards to individuals of the same sex. Young males also form groups and
will engage in playfights. However, as they get older males become more
solitary but may also associate in pairs or with female groups. Giraffes
are not territorial,
but they have home ranges that
vary according to rainfall and proximity to human settlements. Male
giraffes occasionally wander far from areas that they normally frequent.
Although generally quiet and non-vocal,
giraffes have been heard to communicate using various sounds. During courtship,
males emit loud coughs. Females call their young by bellowing. Calves
will emit snorts, bleats, mooing and mewing sounds. Giraffes also snore, hiss,
moan, grunt and make flute-like sounds. During nighttime, giraffes appear
to hum to each other above the
infrasound range for purposes which are unclear.
Angolan giraffes courting (above) and mating
in Namibia. Generally, only dominant males
are able to mate with females.
Reproduction in giraffes is broadly polygamous: a few older males mate with
the fertile females. Male giraffes assess female fertility by tasting the
female's urine to detect oestrus, in a
multi-step process known as the flehmen response. Males prefer young
adult females over juveniles and older adults. Once an oestrous female is
detected, the male will attempt to court her. When courting, dominant males
will keep subordinate ones at bay. A courting male may lick a female's
tail, rest his head and neck on her body or nudge her with his horns. During
copulation, the male stands on his hind legs with his head held up and his
front legs resting on the female's sides.
Giraffe gestation lasts 400–460 days, after
which a single calf is normally born, although twins occur on rare occasions. The
mother gives birth standing up. The calf emerges head and front legs first,
having broken through the fetal membranes, and falls to the ground,
severing the umbilical cord.]The mother then grooms the newborn and helps
it stand up. A newborn giraffe is 1.7–2 m (5.6–6.6 ft) tall. Within
a few hours of birth, the calf can run around and is almost indistinguishable
from a one-week-old. However, for the first 1–3 weeks, it spends most of its
time hiding; its coat pattern providing camouflage. The ossicones, which
have lain flat while it was in the womb, become erect within a few days.[
Mother South African
giraffe with calf. It is mostly the females that raise young.
Mothers with calves will gather in nursery
herds, moving or browsing together. Mothers in such a group may sometimes leave
their calves with one female while they forage and drink elsewhere. This is
known as a "calving pool". Adult
males play almost no role in raising the young, although they appear to have
friendly interactions. Calves are at risk of predation, and a mother giraffe
will stand over her calf and kick at an approaching predator. Females
watching calving pools will only alert their own young if they detect a
disturbance, although the others will take notice and follow.
The length time in which offspring stay with
their mother varies, though it can last until the female's next calving. Likewise,
calves may suckle for only a monthor as long as a year. Females become
sexually mature when they are four years old, while males become mature at four
or five years. Spermatogenesis in
male giraffes begins at three to four years of age. Males must wait until
they are at least seven years old to gain the opportunity to mate.
source: wikipedia , book , and websites
picture:https://images.app.goo.gl/RFnWQu2dsPEQtFmj8
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