Giraffes spend up to 80% of their day eating, depending upon age, season, and gender.  They consume a lot of plants to nourish their big bodies, reaching up high to snatch leaves from tall acacia trees or bending their necks down to feed on low shrubs. Mature giraffes in the wild can eat up to 66 kg (145 lb) of food a day!

Most large herbivores eat grass and are grazers, but not giraffe! They are browsers who eat the highly nutritious leaves of nearly 100 species of bushes and trees. Giraffe in the wild particularly favour leaves from the nutritious Acacia, bushwillow, and sausage trees.  

Females with young may feed differently than females without offspring.  Mothers and their young tend to stay in more open areas, eating whatever leaves are available there.  By eating in open areas, they can more easily see if there are lions in the distance, and flee if needed.

Giraffes help to pollinate the trees they eat from, such as Acacia trees. Pollen ends up on their heads and necks simply from rubbing against the tree’s flowers and therefore can spread pollen from tree to tree.

Giraffe eat other things besides leaves. They enjoy eating the high blossoms of flowering trees as well as the prickly pear cactus. At times they may also exhibit what is called pica behaviour, when they reach down to lick or bite salty soil, or osteophagy when they pick up bones to chew or lick meat which might provide nutritious elements like calcium and phosphorus. This behaviour is usually seen in the dry season when vegetation is less nutritious and they may be lacking certain nutrients.

In the wild, when a member of their group has died, giraffe have been observed exhibiting behaviour that would suggest distress or perhaps grieving. Researchers have documented giraffes standing over the lifeless body, sniffing and pawing the carcass, circling around the body as well as  remaining in the area for hours or days even when the rest of their herd moves on.

When studying giraffes in the wild, Anne Innis Dagg observed male giraffes mounting other male giraffes and documented this activity in her scientific publications. Giraffes join humans and many other species in demonstrating what appears to be homosexual behaviour.

Giraffe have developed their own way of walking to prevent their long back legs from hitting their front legs with every step. They move both of their legs forward in unison on one side, then they move their legs forward on the other side, just as their namesake, the camel, does.  Giraffe in the open wilderness can travel as many as 20 km/day using this graceful gait, but usually only walk 2 to 6 km/day.

The male giraffe’s main ossicones are usually hairless on top because they use their head to hit their opponent during sparring matches.  When fighting, two giraffes stand side by side, swing their heads and with alternating blows hit the other male. As the giraffe get older, their fights become more intense as they compete for mating partners. Females rarely spar so the fur on female ossicones remain intact. This is one way to distinguish male and female giraffes when only their heads are visible.

Giraffes spend very little time sleeping in the wild.  They take short naps between 5-30 minutes at a time, totalling only about 2-3 hours per 24 hour period.  Predation in the wild makes sleeping a risky behaviour, therefore, giraffes usually nap standing up rather than lying down.  Baby giraffes sleep more than adult giraffes.  

Giraffe rival the camel and zebra for having one of the strongest kicks in the world. Zookeepers are very careful when working around giraffe because although they look gentle, they can deliver a powerful blow!

Giraffes spend very little time lying down. They do almost everything standing up: eat, sleep, mate and even give birth!

Giraffe hides have short, dense fur and display an array of polygon shaped patches with cream coloured lines that look like netting. Patches are largest on the torso and grow smaller towards the head and legs.  The colour patches vary from beige, rich red-brown to dark chestnut brown and turn coal black in older males.  The colouring of giraffe hides become darker with age, giving a clue to which adults are oldest in a herd. Their thick hide (close to 1” thick) allows them to walk through thorny vegetation to feed.

Anatomy

Giraffes are the tallest land mammal on earth today! Mature females grow up to be  4-4.8 m (13-16 ft) tall and about 1500 lb (680 kg).  Males grow even taller, up to 4.6- 6 m (16- 19 ft) and can weigh up to 3000 lb (1300 kg) or about the same weight as all 11 members on the offensive side of a professional US football team! 

Giraffe have bigger eyes than African elephants. They actually have the biggest eyes of any land mammal, as well as very sharp visual acuity. In contrast, giraffe olfactory abilities are not very well-developed. Giraffes are lacking at least 50 genes that are related to the sense of smell in okapi. Their big eyes and keen sight help giraffes scan their habitat from high above the ground while they are feeding, but having a superb sense of smell doesn't seem to provide a lot of benefits to giraffes. Both giraffe and people have relied much more on vision than on smell during their evolutionary history.

Giraffes have an enormous heart! It is well suited to pump blood throughout the giraffes’ extensive circulatory system.  A giraffe heart has an average length of approximately 60cm (2 ft)  long and a weight of 8kg (17 lb).  In comparison, the human heart is only about the size of an adult fist and weighs between 0.25 and 0.50 kg (0.5-1.0 lb).

A giraffe’s forelegs are 10% longer than its hind legs, and gives the giraffe its “sloped back” look. An adult giraffe’s legs are longer than most humans are tall!

As male giraffes age, calcium deposits form on their skulls which may result in additional horn-like protrusions on their head.  In addition to the two ossicones directly on top of their head, additional bumps may develop in the middle of their forehead or behind the ears.  Sometimes they develop on other parts of the head as well, such as above the eye.  

Giraffes have the longest necks in the animal kingdom, with lengths up to 1.5 m (5 ft).  Despite their ultra long neck, they have 7 cervical vertebrae, exactly the same number as humans and whales, except giraffe vertebrae are elongated.

Giraffes have long blackish blue or purple tongues with a pink base. This long and agile tongue is about 0.5 m (20”) in length.  When feeding, their prehensile tongue is able to grasp and wrap around vegetation to strip leaves off branches.  Their tongues are so agile they can eat around prickly thorns with no problem!

Giraffes are like cows because both species are ruminants that chew their cud.  They have four stomachs, with the first two partly digesting the food.  Then the lump of partly digested food is pushed back up the throat to the mouth to be chewed some more.  If you watch giraffe carefully, you can sometimes see this bolus of food moving up and down the giraffe’s long neck!  After more chewing, the mixture goes to stomach three and four and then is passed to the intestines.

To protect the giraffe’s brain from sudden changes in blood pressure when it lowers its head to drink, they have a network of tiny blood vessels, called a rete mirabile, that expand in size so that their blood doesn’t flood their brain. They also have elastic walled vessels that dilate and constrict to manage flow.  Their skin is exceptionally tight in their lower legs and works like the anti-gravity flight suits of jet-fighter pilots!

When giraffes in the wild get enough moisture from the leaves they browse on, they only need to drink water every few days.

Giraffes breathe 8-10 x per minute. As a comparison, humans breathe approximately 12-16 x per minute.

The gestation period for giraffes is approximately 13-15 months. Gestation and lactation can be influenced by food availability, the rainfall and other conditions helpful to the female giraffe.

When female giraffes have access to nutrient dense leaves, they are able to become pregnant at any time of year. This is in contrast to large grass eating mammals such as zebras and wildebeest who give birth and/or become pregnant only during or shortly after the rainy season when there is plenty of vegetation to produce milk and energy for sustaining a pregnancy.

Female giraffe stand up when giving birth instead of lying down. Therefore,  a newborn giraffe drops nearly (1.5 m) 6 ft to the ground when it is born. 

Giraffes rarely give birth to twins in the wild or in captivity. When they do, it is a struggle for both calves to survive. If twins are born in zoos, usually one is nursed by its mother while the other is bottle fed by a team of dedicated staff who carefully care for the calf around the clock.  

Newborn giraffes start trying to stand almost immediately after being born and they are able to walk within about an hour. Shortly after that, young calves are able to run. In the wild this early mobility is important to prevent attacks from predators. Approximately half of giraffe calves are lost to lions.

When a giraffe calf is born, it has ossicone cartilages lying flat under the skin on the top of its head (to facilitate the birthing process). Within just a few days of being born, these cartilages stand up beneath the tuft of black hair. They later become ossified and fused to the skull to become ossicones.

Male giraffes are called “bulls”, female giraffes are called “cows” and baby giraffes are called “calves”.

The life span of a giraffe averages 16-18 years, up to about 21 years for males and up to 30 years for females in the wild.

Terrain in zoos is different from the wild so zookeepers keep a watchful eye on the health and wellbeing of giraffes in captivity. One of the most common challenges for giraffes in zoos is hoof problems.  In the wild, giraffe walk long distances over terrain that helps strengthen their hooves, an environment that is difficult to replicate in captivity.  A giraffe hoofprint is large, about the size of a dinner plate!

Giraffe in zoos eat different foods compared to the varied diets of their traditional African feeding grounds. Foods provided in zoos may include a variety of  plants such as cabbage, lettuce, carrots, apples, alfalfa hay, and whole bananas. Some foods are poisonous to giraffe, such as leaves from oleander trees or a diet high in grain. Zoo keepers put food high up in feeding boxes and monitor the giraffes’ diets carefully so they get all the nutrients they need.

Giraffes in captivity located in cooler climates, such as North America, must be sheltered and protected from the elements during the winter months, when temperatures start dipping to 5’C (41’F). Giraffes in southern Africa (Namibia and South Africa) live in desert areas where the temperature dips below freezing at night, so they can survive cold temperatures but they can also move around if it's cold, whereas in zoos, during the winter, they are kept indoors and can't move around in the same way.

The first giraffe exhibited in a public zoo was put on display in France in 1827.  She survived for 17 years in captivity.  Today, about 2,000 giraffes live in zoos around the world.

In the wild, the giraffes’ main predators are humans, lions, leopards, hyenas and crocodiles. Human population growth, habitat loss from human activities, poaching, illegal trade, civil unrest, and ecological changes are major threats to giraffe. There are many things we can do to work together to save the giraffe from extinction. See how you can help by visiting our Take Action page.

The iconic giraffe is currently under threat of a silent extinction because people do not realize how precarious the existence of giraffe is. But by working together, we can reduce the chances of giraffe going extinct. The situation is not hopeless. In fact, the Rothschild’s giraffe has increased in number because of human conservation management plans that boosted the population size.

Giraffe is the national animal of Tanzania, a country located in East Africa.

World Giraffe Day is June 21st. It is aptly on the longest day of the year (in the Northern hemisphere) for the animal with the longest neck in the world.

The Rothschild giraffe subspecies was named after Tring Museum founder, Walter Rothschild.  Similar to Anne Innis Dagg who knew as a young child she wanted to work with giraffe, Walter knew at age 7 that he wanted to run a zoological museum. Follow your dreams and aspirations to help the natural world!

The Masai giraffe subspecies was named after the African people that live in the same region as the giraffe, which is northern Tanzania and southern Kenya.  Masai giraffe numbers have dropped by close to 50% in the last 30 years.

The Reticulated giraffe subspecies was named after their distinctive spot pattern. The word “reticulated” refers to “netting” which describes the stunning hide pattern of this sub species - creamy white lines interwoven on a rich red-brown coat, giving it an appearance of netting.

The word Twiga is Swahili for giraffe. In Tanzania if a girl is called Twiga, it is a compliment that means they are like a super model.  

The word Kameelperd is Afrikaans for giraffe.  

In Japanese, the word for giraffe is Kirin, which is also the name of a famous beer.  But the beer is not named for giraffe; it is named after a mythical dragon beast also called Kirin.

In Swahili there is a phrase to describe a person walking in a slow and beautiful manner, like a giraffe, “Mwendo wa madaha kama Twiga”.