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The giraffe is the longest-necked and tallest animal of the earth and lives in the African savannah. This artiodactyl mammal small head with cute horns, long legs and neck. Outwardly, giraffes are somewhat like camels and also like these “desert ships,” they may not drink for a long time. Spotted fur herbivore giant resembles the skin of a leopard, which is why ancient people believed that giraffes arose as a result of a leopard connection and a camel.
Like human fingerprints, the skin of a giraffe is unique and, in addition, indicates the age of the animal: than the older its owner, the darker the spots. By the way, African live giants no more than a quarter century. The giraffe has one more remarkable feature – amazing durability, and, knowing about In this, people once made reliable shields from it. Interesting that Today, such a super-strong skin makes it difficult to help giraffes in the zoo. It is not possible to give them a regular injection, and therefore, animals are “shot” with syringes from a special device. It is necessary to get into the chest of a giraffe, where the skin is the thinnest. In other places, the needle is not able to pierce the skin.
External data of a giraffe
And what are the “anthropometric data” of these amazing animals? Female giraffes weigh about eight hundred kilograms and reach in height four and a half meters. Males are even larger: their growth reaches six meters, weight – up to one and a half tons. About three hundred kilograms from while the total weight falls on the neck.
It is amazing that these hulks hold thin and long legs! Strong ones help to transfer such pressure to the giraffe’s limbs. blood vessels coupled with dense layers of skin. (By the way, this principle used by NASA staff during the development of the spacesuit.)
A giraffe can run at a speed of fifty kilometers per hour, with calm walking the length of his step is four meters. Cervical the vertebrae of these animals are arranged in a special way, due to which a giraffe can turn its head almost 360 degrees.
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The long (approximately two-meter) neck of the giraffe allows him reach for tree crowns and eat foliage at a height where there are simply no other competitors. However, the legs of a giraffe rather big, and this gives him some difficulties. For example, he is not able to reach the ground with his head to get drunk or pinch the weed (in starvation). For this, a giraffe or wide spreads or bends the front legs at the knees.
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The tongue of these animals is also long (more than half a meter) and at the same time black, and the tail can have a length of two and a half meters.
Other features of the giraffe
Giraffes impress not only with their appearance, but also with a very high heart rate – about one hundred and seventy beats per minute. it the animal has a powerful ten-kilogram heart and is very elastic vessels, which many others do not have artiodactyls.
Like all living things, giraffes need rest and sleep. If they only need a little nap (no more than five minutes), then they satisfy such a need for a standing dream. If giraffes going to sleep, they lie on the ground, bend their legs, and long necks deftly wrap back and lay on your body. Can say they curl up. In order to get enough sleep one hour is enough for giraffes! ..
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These animals can sleep while standing thanks to a special, simple the unique structure of the knee joints that have a unique “locking” mechanism of ligaments and bones. Thus falling asleep and relaxing, the giraffe continues to stand confidently on its feet.
These phenomenal animals prefer to spend their lives standing, as it’s hard for them to rise from the ground, and besides, in such moments of giraffes are vulnerable. By the way, they can walk confidently only by solid soil, and on unsteady their “center of gravity” gets off and animals hard to stay on your feet.
All living things on earth yawn periodically: it makes it easier the work of the cardiovascular system, helps to replenish quickly the necessary supply of oxygen in the lungs finally relieve fatigue. Only giraffes never yawn.
To communicate with each other, these herbivores use a set of different sounds: according to the situation they are able to whistle and moo, growl and snore, even hiss …
Giraffes eat for a long time, but also invulnerable to predators
Giraffes eat a lot and for a long time – up to twenty hours a day. Their favorite dish is acacia leaves, which contain a lot of moisture and allow giraffes to replenish their body with water and for a long time do not drink. Another of their “gastronomic” addictions is, no matter how strange raw onions.
As gregarious animals, giraffes live in groups of up to twenty individuals. Often this is a male with a harem of females. In a herd can join other giraffes, however, in this case, males should be right for this to fight. The main “weapon” in the battle of males is a powerful neck.
A photo from open sources
Giraffe females are wonderful mothers who do not care only about their hard-earned, but also about other people’s cubs, while their parents are looking for food. These giants of the animal world give birth standing, and therefore their babies have to fall to the ground from a height one and a half meters and land on the hind legs. However, already after hour giraffes get up and take their first steps. What is surprising: babies are born with horns …
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At first glance, giraffes seem awkward and clumsy, making them easy prey, especially when they eat and they eat up to twenty hours a day. In fact, giraffes have almost no enemies, unless the lions sometimes decide to try their luck, and even that it rarely ends with luck for them. All other predators fear the powerful blows of the giraffe, which can be applied as legs and head.
Giraffes, like other animals, suffer from wound up in their skins of parasites. And if they cleanse some parts of the body themselves, then the neck invariably remains out of reach. To help the “older brothers” buffalo starlings come – orderlies eating birds annoying insects …
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