Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Despite her rare neck deformity, Gemina reached an old age for a giraffe. She outlived the average giraffe by almost six years. [2] In December 2007 and January 2008, Gemina stopped eating and her health began to deteriorate due to old age. [2] She was reluctantly euthanized by her keepers at the Santa Barbara Zoo on January 9, 2008. [2] [3]
The giraffe's head and neck are held up by large muscles and a nuchal ligament, which are anchored by long thoracic vertebrae spines, giving them a hump. [17] [63] [36] Adult male reticulated giraffe feeding high on an acacia, in Kenya. The giraffe's neck vertebrae have ball and socket joints.
It is characterised by its long, slender neck and limbs, the flat, wedge-like head and the large, round eyes. Males are nearly 89–105 cm (35– 41 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) tall, and the shorter females 80–100 cm (31–39 in); the head-and-body length is typically between 140 and 160 cm (55 and 63 in). Males weigh between 31 and 52 kg (68 and 115 lb ...
Find out all about giraffes as Nairobi's Giraffe Manor
Just hours after its birth, this six-foot-tall giraffe was ready for its first close-up.
An adult giraffe head can weigh 30 kg (66 lb), and if necessary, male giraffes establish a hierarchy among themselves by swinging their heads at each other, horns first, a behavior known as "necking". A subordinate okapi signals submission by placing its head and neck on the ground. Giraffes are sociable, whereas okapis live mainly solitary lives.
Often mistaken with the southern giraffe, the northern giraffe differs by the shape and size of the two distinctive horn-like protuberances known as ossicones on its forehead; they are longer and larger than those of southern giraffe. Male northern giraffes have a third cylindrical ossicone in the center of the head just above the eyes, ranging ...
In okapi, the male's ossicones are smaller in proportion to the head, and taper towards their tips, forming a sharper point than the comparatively blunt giraffe ossicone. Whereas female giraffes have reduced ossicones, female okapi lack ossicones entirely. The morphology of ossicones in the extinct relatives of giraffes and okapi varies widely.