Giraffes: Unique body shape and strange reproduction process

African giraffes have a unique body shape and peculiar reproductive behavior, with a gestation period of 400-460 days. When encountering natural enemies, they will flee, attack with their necks or intimidate with their legs, and have strong self-protection capabilities.

Africa, with its relatively primitive environment, has contributed a lot of material for animal documentaries in recent years. After all, ferocious lions, agile cheetahs, huge elephants and tall giraffes all live here.

The animal that gives photographers a headache is the giraffe , which is particularly special among the short animals. In addition to its special body shape, the giraffe’s reproductive and self-protection behaviors are also very strange and difficult to understand.

Giraffes are often a headache for photographers because their entire bodies don’t fit into the frame.

So, how bizarre is the reproduction process of giraffes? When faced with danger, how ferocious are giraffes in their efforts to protect themselves?

The tallest mammal in the world

Giraffes are the tallest mammals in the world and live in many areas of Africa. African giraffes is also related to the introduction of giraffes in ancient times.

The giraffe’s peculiar appearance amazed people, and they thought its form and habits were very similar to the Qilin. So they regarded it as a Qilin, and the giraffe was nicknamed Qilin Deer.

In the Ming Dynasty, during the Yongle reign, the king of Bengal sent a tribute of giraffes to my country.

Giraffes are even-toed ungulates belonging to the Giraffidae family and the genus Giraffe . For a long time, people believed that all giraffes on Earth were the same and that they were a single species, but later biologists divided them into nine subspecies based on their morphology and geographical location, including the Masai giraffe, reticulated giraffe, Angolan giraffe , etc. Of course, based on genetic analysis data, the giraffe population can actually be divided into three independent species.

People divide the world’s giraffes into nine subspecies based on their geographical location.

But no matter which type of giraffe it is, they all have the same characteristics, that is, long legs and necks . According to the data, the height of an adult giraffe is about 4.3 meters to 5.7 meters. The average weight of a male giraffe is 1,192 kilograms, and that of a female giraffe is 828 kilograms. From this weight data, it can be seen that most of them weigh more than one ton.

The body does not take up a large proportion of this outstanding height, mainly the neck and legs contribute to its length. Take the giraffe’s neck as an example, its neck is generally 2 meters to 2.4 meters long, the number of cervical vertebrae is not large, but the length of each segment is more than 28 centimeters.

Giraffes don’t have many cervical vertebrae, but they are all very long.

As for the legs, its forelimbs and hind limbs are basically the same length, and the length of the legs is about 2 meters . The suspensory ligaments on them allow these “beautiful legs” that look slender and easily fractured to withstand huge weight.

And it should be noted that the giraffe’s neck and legs do not hinder their running, because their neck and legs will maintain momentum balance when they run. Although the running posture looks very funny, the speed is not slow, and the maximum speed can reach 60 kilometers per hour . Therefore, it is quite difficult for ordinary predators on the grassland to catch up with the giraffe and kill it!

It is worth mentioning that giraffes not only have long legs and necks, but also have ridiculously long tongues, about 45 cm long . They not only use their long tongues to roll up leaves from high places, but also use them to clean their hair or nasal cavities, because there are many parasites that make their homes on them.

In general, although this tallest mammal on land looks like a “big fool”, its body structure still hides the secrets of evolution. So, how do these “tall guys” mate and reproduce?

The reproduction process is very strange

We need to first understand the gestation period of giraffes. Their gestation period can be say to be quite long, about 400 to 460 days , and basically only one baby is born each time. And after the baby giraffe is born, it may stay with its mother for a long time, even until the next time the mother gives birth.

Not only is the gestation period long, but the cubs also reach sexual maturity very late. Females need to wait until they are four years old, and males often need to wait until they are five years old . After sexual maturity, it does not mean that they can mate, because relevant research shows that they must wait until about seven years old before they can officially mate.

From the above information, we can see that the reproductive cycle of giraffes is actually quite long, and males only participate in mating and do not participate in the subsequent “raising babies”. Because of this, giraffe families are generally dominate by females. Whenever giraffes enter the estrus period, people can see their unique performances.

Like most animals, male giraffes that do not bear the responsibility of raising offspring must prove that they are the strongest before they have the opportunity to mate with females. Therefore, every time this happens, male giraffes will start fighting. At the beginning of the fight, the necks of both sides will be close, and then they will start to “shake”.

It turns out that these guys used their necks as weapons of attack, shaking their heads to let their hard skulls hit the opponent.

Next, we can see two giraffes shaking their necks wildly, trying to knock each other down. Of course, shaking their necks alone is not enough, they will also use the horns on their heads to butt each other’s bodies, and even raise their long legs to kick each other and “trip” each other. In short, in the process of competing for territory and mates, this kind of battle will last for a long time, and the sound of the two necks hitting each other can be hear from a long distance.

When the fight is over, the victorious giraffe will court the female. They also have a unique way of getting to know each other: the female will excrete urine for the male to taste.

Special organs in the male’s mouth can analyze its fertility, estrus cycle, etc. through urine analysis, which is often call the cleft lip sniffing response . Once both parties are satisfy, the male giraffe will begin mating from behind the female giraffe. The mating time is often very short, about 1 minute or so.

First they fight with their necks, then they use urine to “dating”, the mating and reproduction of giraffes is indeed very strange . So, when they encounter natural enemies, do they also use their necks as weapons?

Becomes extremely ferocious when in danger

As a herbivore, the giraffe is prey upon. However, due to its size, most carnivores cannot do anything to it. Only lions occasionally attack giraffes, and this attack often occurs when the giraffe is drinking water.

Because the neck is almost the same as the legs, the giraffe’s head cannot touch the ground when standing, so when they drink water in the pond, they will perform the “splits” stunt to lower their body height, which gives the lions an opportunity to take advantage of them.

Previously, several lions besieged a giraffe in a nature reserve in South Africa. One lion rode on its back, and the rest hugged its thighs. They fought for more than four hours without being able to kill the giraffe. In the end, the lions were exhaust and left in disgrace.

There are generally three ways for giraffes to protect themselves. The first is to sense the crisis in advance and start running away . After all, running 60 kilometers per hour is very fast, and they have very good endurance.

The second is to use its neck to attack the predator , which can be regard as a “headbutt”. In the melee, if a lion is hit by a “headbutt”, it will most likely suffer internal injuries and several break bones.

The last method is to use its slender thighs . You should know that it is 5 meters tall and weighs about 1 ton. Stamping its feet can still make the ground shake. And with the height advantage, the attack power of a giraffe’s kick is not something that ordinary animals can withstand.

Of course, whether it is shaking its neck or kicking its legs, it may also hurt itself. But it is still a good way to deter the enemy and make them dare not approach.