Giraffes
Species: Giraffa camelopardalis
Diet: Herbivore
Size: 14-18 feet tall-males taller
Weight: Between 1500-4500 lbs by species
Origin: Africa
Personality: Typically peaceful
Life Span: About 25 years
Diet: Herbivore
Size: 14-18 feet tall-males taller
Weight: Between 1500-4500 lbs by species
Origin: Africa
Personality: Typically peaceful
Life Span: About 25 years
Hi! Up here! Hey, I'm George the Giraffe. see me and my friends in the picture up there? I'm in the middle.
Want to learn a little about Giraffes? Ok, let's start with our life cycle.
Life Cycle
Giraffes are born after 16 months of growing inside their moms. Their mom's give birth to them while standing. Baby Giraffes are 6 feet tall when they're born, and they weight near 200 pounds too. That's a big baby. Within an hour or so the babies, called calves, will be up and walking around. Giraffes are not mature till between 3-5 years. We live for about 25 years.
Diet
I, like all of my Giraffe relatives, am an herbivore. That means I only eat plant based foods. Giraffes particularly like the leaves of the Acacia tree. Those are awesome! Acacia is spiky and would seem to be tough to eat, but Giraffes like me have nice thick tongues, that are covered with papillae, or taste buds, and that protects us from the thorny branches. Our mouth and lips are covered in these taste buds too. So then we can wrap our prehensile(which means it's like another limb!) tongues around those spiky branches and pull them right off and into our mouths with no problem. Our tongues are around 20 inches long. If you can see in the pic here they are also a bluish purple color! Stylish.
We will eat from a lot of different trees. We prefer the higher branches of course. We also like grass, fruit and shrubs.
We are also something that is called a "ruminant". We swallow our food and then it gets fermented a bit by bacteria inside our body in a special stomach for that. Then we regurgitate(or basically throw it up) it back up into our mouths and chew it over again. The food we are re -chewing is called "cud" by some people.
Appearance
Most people can recognize a Giraffe because we're so tall. There are some other things that are outstanding about our appearance, in addition to our awesome tongues and height.
Giraffe horns are actually called Ossicones. They are covered in skin and hair and you can tell if a Giraffe is a boy or girl by looking at the horns. Male's horns have knobs on the top and are usually hairless on top. Female Giraffes' horns or Ossicones are thinner and have tufts of hair on top.
Something else neat about us, are our markings or spots. Each Giraffe has a different pattern, much like a human's fingerprint. It aids us in camouflage, and also cooling off in the heat, as under our spots are lots of blood vessels and sweat glands which help in cooling us off.
Our long legs are around 6 feet long and we have a small 3 foot or so tail too.
Our neck is long too, usually around 6 feet long, give or take a few inches, and can weigh 600 pounds! We use our necks and our ossicones(horns) when we males spar or fight with one another. We will slam our necks together and wrap around each other when we are trying to determine who is boss among the males. When males do this they also develop calcium deposits on their heads that can look like more ossicones or horns on their heads. If you see a Giraffe with a lumpy looking head(Like me in the first picture), most likely that Giraffe is a male.
Well I hope I have taught you a lot about my kind. Now, I'm off to find some Acacia!
Want to learn a little about Giraffes? Ok, let's start with our life cycle.
Life Cycle
Giraffes are born after 16 months of growing inside their moms. Their mom's give birth to them while standing. Baby Giraffes are 6 feet tall when they're born, and they weight near 200 pounds too. That's a big baby. Within an hour or so the babies, called calves, will be up and walking around. Giraffes are not mature till between 3-5 years. We live for about 25 years.
Diet
I, like all of my Giraffe relatives, am an herbivore. That means I only eat plant based foods. Giraffes particularly like the leaves of the Acacia tree. Those are awesome! Acacia is spiky and would seem to be tough to eat, but Giraffes like me have nice thick tongues, that are covered with papillae, or taste buds, and that protects us from the thorny branches. Our mouth and lips are covered in these taste buds too. So then we can wrap our prehensile(which means it's like another limb!) tongues around those spiky branches and pull them right off and into our mouths with no problem. Our tongues are around 20 inches long. If you can see in the pic here they are also a bluish purple color! Stylish.
We will eat from a lot of different trees. We prefer the higher branches of course. We also like grass, fruit and shrubs.
We are also something that is called a "ruminant". We swallow our food and then it gets fermented a bit by bacteria inside our body in a special stomach for that. Then we regurgitate(or basically throw it up) it back up into our mouths and chew it over again. The food we are re -chewing is called "cud" by some people.
Appearance
Most people can recognize a Giraffe because we're so tall. There are some other things that are outstanding about our appearance, in addition to our awesome tongues and height.
Giraffe horns are actually called Ossicones. They are covered in skin and hair and you can tell if a Giraffe is a boy or girl by looking at the horns. Male's horns have knobs on the top and are usually hairless on top. Female Giraffes' horns or Ossicones are thinner and have tufts of hair on top.
Something else neat about us, are our markings or spots. Each Giraffe has a different pattern, much like a human's fingerprint. It aids us in camouflage, and also cooling off in the heat, as under our spots are lots of blood vessels and sweat glands which help in cooling us off.
Our long legs are around 6 feet long and we have a small 3 foot or so tail too.
Our neck is long too, usually around 6 feet long, give or take a few inches, and can weigh 600 pounds! We use our necks and our ossicones(horns) when we males spar or fight with one another. We will slam our necks together and wrap around each other when we are trying to determine who is boss among the males. When males do this they also develop calcium deposits on their heads that can look like more ossicones or horns on their heads. If you see a Giraffe with a lumpy looking head(Like me in the first picture), most likely that Giraffe is a male.
Well I hope I have taught you a lot about my kind. Now, I'm off to find some Acacia!