Giraffe with a Short Neck

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Hello up there! Why do so many people look up to giraffes—besides the obvious reason? The long and short of it is that they are a wonderful example of nature’s creativity. Matt McGrath (8 December 2016). "Giraffes facing 'silent extinction' as population plunges". BBC News. Archived from the original on 21 May 2019 . Retrieved 8 December 2016. Using photogrammetry, a measurement technique that uses a laser to measure distances, the scientists found that Gimli and Nigel had shorter metacarpals and radial measurements, which are the bones below and above their knees respectively, reports Rachael Funnell for IFLScience. How these two giraffes ended up with dwarfism is still hazy. Random mutations in the genetic code can cause dwarfism, but it can also be linked to low genetic diversity or inbreeding, reports the Times.

Individual captive giraffes were given celebrity status throughout history. In 1414, a giraffe from Malindi was taken to China by explorer Zheng He and placed in a Ming dynasty zoo. The animal was a source of fascination for the Chinese people, who associated it with the mythical Qilin. [124] :56 The Medici giraffe was a giraffe presented to Lorenzo de' Medici in 1486. It caused a great stir on its arrival in Florence. [129] Zarafa, another famous giraffe, was brought from Egypt to Paris in the early 19th century as a gift for CharlesX of France. A sensation, the giraffe was the subject of numerous memorabilia or "giraffanalia". [124] :81National Symbols: National Animal". tanzania.go.tz. Tanzania Government Portal. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015 . Retrieved 14 January 2015. Walter, M.; Fournier, A.; Menevaux, D. (2001). "Integrating shape and pattern in mammalian models" (PDF). Proceedings of the 28th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. pp. 317–26. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.10.7622. doi: 10.1145/383259.383294. ISBN 978-1-58113-374-5. S2CID 13488215. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015 . Retrieved 16 November 2011. Hassanin, Alexandre; Douzery, Emmanuel J. P. (2003). “Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies of Ruminantia and the Alternative Position of the Moschidae”. Systematic Biology.

Typically, these fascinating animals roam the open grasslands in small groups of about half a dozen.According to scientific studies, they evolved in the Miocene from ungulate animals occupying regions of Africa and Eurasia; We are talking about 25 million years ago. Eventually, they became extinct, but a new species emerged. A 2020 study showed that depending on the method chosen, different taxonomic hypotheses recognizing from two to six species can be considered for the genus Giraffa. [23] That study also found that multi-species coalescent methods can lead to taxonomic over-splitting, as those methods delimit geographic structures rather than species. The three-species hypothesis, which recognises G. camelopardalis, G. giraffa, and G. tippelskirchi, is highly supported by phylogenetic analyses and also corroborated by most population genetic and multi-species coalescent analyses. [23] A 2021 whole genome sequencing study suggests the existence of four distinct species and seven subspecies. [24] While the giraffe as we know it is native to Africa, more than 20-25 million years ago their ancestors also roamed along Europe and Asia. There aren’t many fossils of them, but some information has allowed scientists to come up with some evolution theories. Giraffes have a presence in modern Western culture. Salvador Dalí depicted them with burning manes in some of his surrealist paintings. Dali considered the giraffe to be a masculine symbol, and a flaming giraffe was meant to be a "masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster". [124] :123 Several children's books feature the giraffe, including David A. Ufer's The Giraffe Who Was Afraid of Heights, Giles Andreae's Giraffes Can't Dance and Roald Dahl's The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. Giraffes have appeared in animated films, as minor characters in Disney's The Lion King and Dumbo, and in more prominent roles in The Wild and the Madagascar films. Sophie the Giraffe has been a popular teether since 1961. Another famous fictional giraffe is the Toys "R" Us mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. [124] :127 a b c Fennessy, Julian; Bidon, Tobias; Reuss, Friederike; Kumar, Vikas; Elkan, Paul; Nilsson, Maria A.; Vamberger, Melita; Fritz, Uwe; Janke, Axel (2016). "Multi-locus Analyses reveal four giraffe species instead of one". Current Biology. 26 (18): 2543–2549. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.07.036. PMID 27618261. S2CID 3991170.