Giraffe - Giraffe - Giraffa

Anne van Gerwen

TV1M
28-6-2017

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Contents
Taxonomy .................................................................................................................................. 3
Food and digestion ................................................................................................................... 4
Breathing and respiration ....................................................................................................... 5
Sense and sensibility ................................................................................................................. 6
Reproduction and offspring .................................................................................................... 7
Environment ............................................................................................................................. 8
Did you know…? ...................................................................................................................... 9
Sources..................................................................................................................................... 10

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Taxonomy
The giraffe is a hoofed mammal with a very long neck and it has long and slender legs. It is
the tallest animal in the world: an adult giraffe can reach a height of around five meters. The
giraffe's baby is 2 meters by birth.
Living giraffes were originally classified as one species by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.
The ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the camel or dromedary and the leopard were
distant ancestors of the giraffes. Hence the crazy scientific name that the giraffe still has: the
camelopardalis.
Modern representatives of the Giraffidae family only occur in Africa, but their spread was
worldwide. This family probably appeared in the Mioceen, about 25 million years ago.
Scientists assume that the first Giraffidae originated from a herbaceous species. It is not yet
clear where this family originated, as both directions have been found in North Africa and in
Eurasia.
The oldest forms that belong to the Giraffidae with certainty are called Orangira
(Palaeotraginae). These lived in the Mioceen in Eurasia. They were about as big as a red deer,
had double skin-coated horns and a neck as long as those of the okapi. Another extinct
subfamily are the bovine giraffes (Sivatheriinae). These looked a bit like cattle. They were big
animals with strong legs. Some species also had big headdress.
A far family member of the giraffe is the okapi. The okapi is
much smaller than the giraffe and has a shorter neck and legs.
From his head to the tip of his tail he is about two meters
long. Like the giraffe he has a long tongue, horns and big ears.
He has stripes instead of stains. The okapi does not live like
the giraffe in a flock. He lives alone. Unlike giraffe, okapi's
are mostly active at night. The okapi lives in the forest of
Congo and unfortunately there are very few left of it.
Giraffe:
: Animalia
: Chordata
: Mammalia
: Artiodactyla
: Giraffidae
: Giraffa
: Giraffa Camelopardalis
Latin name : Giraffa

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Food and digestion
Giraffes are herbivores. They usually eat leaves of trees and shrubs, but they also eat flowers,
fruits and seeds. Giraffes do not eat much grass, because of their long life it is much easier to
extract the food from the trees.
The favourite food consists of leaves of
acacia trees. They do not bother the thorns
of acacias. Their lips and tongue are so
stubborn that the thorns do not hurt them.
They have a thick and sticky saliva that
surrounds the thorns of acacias and makes it
easier to swallow it. The saliva also helps to
heal wounds caused by the thorns.

Giraffes are ruminants. This means that they chew some partially digested food again. A
giraffe swallows its food for the first time without chewing it up properly. Later, partly
digested food from the stomach returns to the mouth. The giraffe chews the food well and
swallows it again.
If the food is well digested, small and hard cuts remain. These are very small for such a big
beast, but there are quite a lot of them. Sometimes a giraffe eats small pieces of earth where
minerals, such as salts, sit in. To keep healthy, the giraffe needs these substances.
A giraffe eats 65 kilograms of food every day in 16 to 20 hours.
In the leaves there is a lot of moisture. That is useful because drinking is difficult for a long
giraffe. The forelegs are longer than his neck so to be able to drink water, he must spread his
forehead or lower his knees. A giraffe can drink for a minute after a while and does not have
to drink often because he can live a month without water. Giraffes have a long, hard and
rough tongue.
The tongue is about 46 centimetres long. They use them to pick leaves
and even to lick their ears.

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Breathing and respiration
The neck of the giraffe is about two meters long. The diameter of the trachea is 4 centimetres.
Giraffes breathe through their nose, so not like humans do, through their nose and mouth.

Giraffes breathe in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide, just like humans and other
mammals. When a giraffe breathes oxygen into his body, the air travels in the trachea and into
the lungs. The lungs fill with oxygen, and the giraffe's circulatory system supplies this
necessary gas to the rest of the body of the giraffe. When a giraffe breathes, carbon dioxide is
released into the air, which requires the trees and plants for photosynthesis.

The lungs of a giraffe are about eight times larger

than the lungs of a human. But if they were not
larger, a giraffe would breathe the same air over
and over again. Because the trachea of the giraffe
is so long and narrow, there is very much dead air
in the giraffe. However, the breathing rate of a
giraffe is about one-third slower than the breathing
rate of a human, to help with the dead air problem.
When a giraffe takes a new breath, the ‘old’ breath
is not totally expelled. The lungs of the giraffe
must be larger to accommodate this ‘bad’ air and
still allow its respiratory and circulatory systems to
get oxygen to all parts of its body.

The heart of a giraffe is also larger than the heart of a human since it has to pump oxygen-rich
blood up 10 feet to its brain from the lungs. This takes double the normal pressure required
for the heart of a human to pump oxygen-rich blood to the brain of the human. Another
interesting thing about the body of a giraffe is that when the giraffe lowers its head to drink
out of the water, it does not literally blow its top. The giraffe has reinforced artery walls,
bypass and anti-pooling valves, a web of small blood vessels, and sensors that give just
enough oxygen-rich blood to the brain.

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Sense and sensibility
Giraffes use their senses to find food, watch predators and watch their baby’s. They can see
and hear well. Also their smell works very good and their tongue also works good.

Eyes:
A giraffe has bigger eyes than any other
land animal. Giraffes can look two
kilometres far by their long neck and sharp
eyes. The eyes of a giraffe are on the side
of their head. As a result, they also see
predators who are coming behind them. A
giraffe also sees colours. A giraffe has eyes
with long eyelashes, which help protect
against the thorns of trees and against the
sand. Giraffes can close their eyes apart.
This is useful when dust or sand comes from a certain side, so they can keep an eye open.
Giraffes do not look so good in the dark. Therefore they are mainly active during the day.

Ears:
Also the hearing is well developed. They can
turn their ears in the direction of the sound.
Giraffes hear sounds that are sometimes too
low for people to hear.

Nose:
Giraffes have a normal sense of smell. They can close their
nostrils with the help of muscles. The bulls have a good smell, so
they can easily find females which are ready to mate.

Tongue:
The giraffe's tongue is very long. The colour is blue/black. The tongue is also rough and firm.
Giraffes use their tongue and thick lips to pull leaves in their mouths. They also use their
tongue to lick their ears.

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Reproduction and offspring
If a female giraffe is about 5 years old she can couple. In March and April, the male giraffe
calls a kind of blow. That is the beginning of mating behaviour. Male giraffes assess female
fertility by tasting the female’s urine. When they couple, the male lays his head or the back of
the female and then licks her tail. If the female accepts the male then the male will put his
front legs on the back of the female and start pairing.
The pregnancy lasts about 14-15 months. A baby giraffe is called a calf. Twins are very rare
at giraffes, they often only get 1 calf at a time.
Giraffes bring their calf to the world in a special place. This is often the place where they
were born.
During childbirth, the mother stays standing, so the baby
giraffe makes a drop of 1.5 metre during birth.

Usually the front legs come first and then the head. The
horns on the head are folded backwards.
The young of the giraffe is about 1.5 meters tall at birth
and weighs between 45 and 70 kilograms.
A new-born giraffe can stand and run within one hour of
birth.

The mother feeds her young with milk. In the first week, the young grows about 3 centimetres
a day. The calves drink with her milk until they are 1 year old. But after two or three weeks
they also eat bushes. At four months they can already chew.
The first week remains the little giraffe with his mum, after which it goes to a group of young
giraffes and more mothers. This allows the mother to go further to eat and drink.
The first two years of his life remains the calf near his mother, after which he chooses his own
way.
The giraffe is adult when it is 10 years old, and the giraffe can be 25 years old. In her life, a
female giraffe gets 6 or 7 babies.

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Environment
Giraffes do only exist in Africa. A very long time ago, they also lived in parts of Asia. There
they are extinct now. Even in the north of Africa they were found earlier, but since it has
changed in a desert, there are almost no giraffes anymore. Most giraffes occur in the east and
south of Africa. They live on the savannahs. These are large open plains with bushes, trees
and watercourses here and there. The giraffe is preferred for areas with low or medium bushes
and other woody plants. The giraffe can live up to 2000 meters height , but usually it is on flat
ground In the dry season the soil is dry and the grasses are yellow/golden in colour. As soon
as it is raining, new grass begins to grow and the savannah becomes green. Giraffes live with
other plant eaters, but they do not attract so much of the other animals.

They live in small changing groups. A

group can consist of males, females and
young giraffes. Such a group is called a
herd. Males sometimes fight to determine
who is the boss of the herd. Males can walk
around themselves, but the females prefer
to live in a group. Giraffes always keep a
great distance apart, except when there is a
risk of danger. There are also groups
consisting of females only and really young
giraffes. They stay close together because
the young animals can be an easy prey for
predators.

Giraffes also live in wildlife parks in Africa. In Europe, the giraffe only exist in zoos. In
Burgers Zoo in Arnhem they live with other animals like zebras in a large run-off area.

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Did you know…?
 That people and giraffes both have seven bones in their neck, but that the bones of the
giraffes are much longer?
 That the giraffes run 55 kilometres per hour?
 That they swing with their neck if they are running to stay in balance?
 That the lungs of the giraffes are 8 times as big as the lungs of a human?
 That the heart or the giraffes has a weight of 11 kilograms. That is 25 times as heavy
as a heart of a human?
 That giraffes sleep mostly standing because it takes too long to stand up if there is a
predator coming?
 That the giraffe only sleeps a few minutes behind each other?
 That the giraffes sleep only half an hour a day?
 That the tail of the giraffe is about 250 centimetres long?
 That the baby of the giraffe is falling 150 centimetres by birth?
 That the male can become 550 centimetres high and the female 450 centimetres?
 And that the male has a weight of 2000 kilograms and the female 1180 kilograms?
 That every giraffe has its own unique spot pattern?
 That the tongue of a giraffe can become 46 centimetres long?
 That the way how a giraffe runs is named the ‘telgang’?
 That young giraffes bleat and mows just like a cat?
 That giraffes wrap their necks around each other to measure their forces?
 That the okapis are the family of the giraffes?
 That giraffes can look 2 kilometres far?
 That a giraffe has bigger eyes than any other land animal?

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Sources
Information:
Websites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe
https://sites.google.com/site/biologiegiraffe/home/ademhaling
http://sciencing.com/a-giraffe-breathe-4566391.html
Books:
Giraffen – Lien van Horen
Dieren van dicht bij Giraffen – Asavari Singh
Dieren leven Giraffen – Sally Morgan
Beest in beeld Giraffen – Christine en Michel Denis-Huot
Pictures:
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/okapi
https://nl.dreamstime.com/stock-foto-de-boom-van-de-giraf-en-van-de-acacia-image7255610
https://twitter.com/obsspectrum/status/562508655128764416
https://www.pressreader.com/australia/science-illustrated/20170401/282071981750095
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/natural-world/top-10-animals-that-can-really-
bat-an-eyelash/
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-giraffe-nose-national-safari-park-ramat-gan-israel-
image60322162
https://www.flickr.com/photos/janine-white/60529172
https://darwinexplorer.wordpress.com/
http://www.zoosite.nl/site/node/1058
http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/giraffe
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/science/our-understanding-of-giraffes-does-not-
measure-up.html
http://weblog.borsato.nl/log/flupenfloor/116594
http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/giraffe/
http://artikelen.foobie.nl/dieren/11120-giraffe-spreekbeurt-giraffe-werkstuk/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzBF1gCS_ik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe

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