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The giraffe's tongue is about 45 cm (18 in) long. It is black, perhaps to protect against sunburn, and can grasp foliage and delicately pick off leaves. [ 49 ] : 109–110 The upper lip is flexible and hairy to protect against sharp prickles. [ 17 ]
The Masai giraffe's most famous feature, its neck, contains seven vertebrae and makes up roughly one third of its body height. Its long and muscular tongue, which can be up to 50 centimeters (20 inches) in length, is prehensile and allows it to grab leaves from tall trees that are inaccessible to other animals.
The okapi's neck is long compared to most ruminants, but not nearly so long as the giraffe's. Male giraffes are the tallest of all mammals: their horns reach 5.5 m (18 ft) above the ground and their shoulder 3.3 m (11 ft), whereas the okapi has a shoulder height of 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in). [9]
Giraffe's tongue Extended proboscis of a long tongued Macroglossum moth. The muscles of the tongue evolved in amphibians from occipital somites. Most amphibians show a proper tongue after their metamorphosis. [22] As a consequence, most tetrapod animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals—have tongues (the frog family of pipids lack ...
Morphological features shared between the giraffe and the okapi include a similar gait – both use a pacing gait, stepping simultaneously with the front and the hind leg on the same side of the body, unlike other ungulates that walk by moving alternate legs on either side of the body [30] – and a long, black tongue (longer in the okapi ...
A Penn State researcher has been trying to get to the bottom of the age-old question of why giraffes have long necks.
The Reticulated giraffe is a herbivore feeding on leaves, shoots, and shrubs. Their up to 30 centimeter long blue tongue is used to strip the branches of acacia trees, their primary food source. [4] They spend most of their day feeding, roughly 13 hours/day, eating up to 34 kilograms of food per day. [12]
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