Maybe it's the big eyes, the silly antennae, the stately walk, the comical splits or the purple tongues that make giraffes a fairly popular animal in zoos, but they have only recently been studied in fields, according to a New York Times article.
Julian Fennessy, executive director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, called giraffes "forgotten megafauna."
"You hear all about elephants, Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees, Dian Fossey and her mountain gorillas, but there's been a massive paucity of information about giraffes," said Fennessy.
In fact, scientists have discovered that giraffes have a lot in common with the social elephant.
"Female giraffes, for example, have been found to form close friendships with one another that can last for years, while mother giraffes have displayed signs of persistent grief after losing their calves to lions," reported The Times.
Dr. Kerryn Carter from the University of Queensland found that females also had social preferences. Female giraffes had social contact with the same group of giraffes roughly 80 percent of the time. Female giraffes rely on one another for things like tips on the best places to get food or just for company.
A Minnesota researcher reported that a mother giraffe stayed at the site where a lion had seized her calf. The mother did not eat while she mourned in the company of two other females, according to The Times.
Young male giraffes strut and change sexual strategy depending on their competition, but when faced by a dominant male, will change their attitude completely.
"It's a case of 'When I'm alone I'm the big giraffe,' but as soon as there are bigger bulls present, 'No, no, no, I'm just a child,'" said Andre Ganswindt of the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
The change in demeanor is possibly due to the deadly fights for dominance between bulls. The giraffe's long graceful neck is used to whip the aggressor's head and bash it against the neck of the rival. Broken necks are often the lethal result. Giraffes also have strong legs, which can be used against predators like a lion.
Despite strong kicking muscles, giraffes are not swift runners. They have high blood pressure, but their blood output is less than that of humans, according to researchers from the Aarhus University in Denmark. Due to slow reflexes, only about half of giraffe calves make it to their first birthdays.
According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there are less than 80,000 giraffes now in the wild. From 140,000 to 80,000 is a reduction of 40 percent in the last 15 years. This year saw the first National Giraffe Day, which was held on June 21, "to celebrate the longest-necked animal on the longest day or night (depending on which hemisphere you live!)"
