A boy of your age is not allowed in a drinking tavern
{ Photographing the photographing of giraffes at the National Zoo, Washington, D.C., 1926 | Shorpy }
giraffe category
Enter the Dark Tunnel of Sins
{ Blachon, 1976 }
Collision
{ ImgRed.com }
I’ll Buy That Skull and Crossbones Ring and You Can Wear It Around Your Neck on an Old Piece of String
The outstanding feature of the giraffe is its long neck. This is not due to an increased number of vertebrae. Giraffes have, like all other mammals, only seven neck vertebrae, which are greatly elongated.
Giraffes are thought to be mute; however, although generally quiet, they have been heard to grunt, snort and bleat and also recent research has shown evidence that the animal communicates at an infrasound level.
The giraffes enemies are lions and large packs of hyenas. The giraffe defends itself against threats by kicking with great force. A single well-placed kick of an adult giraffe can shatter a lion’s skull or break its spine.
The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between 10 minutes and two hours in a 24-hour period. This has led to the myth that giraffes cannot lie down and that if they do so, they will die.
A giraffe’s heart, which can weigh up to 10 kg (24 lb) and about 2 feet long, has to generate around double the normal blood pressure for an average large mammal in order to maintain blood flow to the brain against gravity. In the upper neck, a complex pressure-regulation system called the rete mirabile prevents excess blood flow to the brain when the giraffe lowers its head to drink.
A giraffe will clean off any bugs that appear on its face with its extremely long tongue (about 18 in/45 cm). Giraffe tongues are distinctly blue-black to protect from sunburn.
To Neck, Necked, Necked
{ Tetrapod Zoology } Giraffes are famous for being long necked, with the usual explanation for the neck being that it evolved to enable these animals to avoid competing with other browsers.
But for this assumption to be experimentally supported you’d have to show that giraffes use their long necks to forage high up, and show that giraffes have a competitive advantage over shorter browsers. Surprisingly, it has been argued that these assumptions don’t hold up. In some areas, over 50% of all giraffe browsing is done below 2 m, and thus well within the browsing height of potential competitor species. (…)
the long neck doesn’t just have a role in foraging and feeding: it also has an important sociosexual function, given that male giraffes battle with their necks in a sort of ritualized combat (termed necking. Yes really). They swing their thick-roofed skulls like sledgehammers, landing blows on the neck and head of a competitor. These battles can be vicious and result in fatalities.
Unsurprisingly, males therefore have thicker and bigger ossicones, a more strongly reinforced skull, and thicker and tougher neck skin, than females. But that’s not where the sexual dimorphism ends. It turns out that males have proportionally bigger, deeper, and more muscular necks than females. Furthermore, the neck of a male giraffe continues growing throughout life and the neck increases in size allometrically. Larger-necked males are also socially dominant and preferred by females.
