Giraffe

Photo slideshow of the giraffes at the wild animal park I used to work at. I included the boats at the beginning so that you could see how the tourists could observe the animals as they moved through the park. --I'm between 16 to 22 years old in the photographs.Giraffes are even-toed ungulates, meaning that they are hooved. Giraffes are ruminants, meaning they have a four-chambered stomach like cattle, and chew their cud to assist in digestion. Like cattle, the females are called cows, the males bulls, and the babies calves. Even though giraffes have the longest necks in the animal kingdom, their necks only have seven vertebrae just as most mammals. Giraffes have special valves in the blood vessels in their necks to prevent the blood from rushing out of their head when lifting it quickly, so as to prevent fainting. A bull giraffe can reach a height of 15 to 17 feet (4.7-5.3 m). They have a long, black tongue which can be extended up to 18 inches (46 cm) in order to strip leaves from high branches. At 1:32, a male giraffe is testing a female's urine to see if she is ready to breed (it's called flehmen or lip-curl response). The female with legs sticking out of her backside is giving birth. After a gestation period of 15 months, the mothers give birth standing up. You'll notice that the baby's horns are flattened to allow for making the birthing process easier. There were several babies born while I worked there, but one female was never very good at motherhood,... so we would always have to bottle raise her young each time she gave birth. The female giraffe that is nursing two babies is actually the mother of the third baby standing to the side. Giraffes in the wild will sometimes leave their young with one female as they go off to forage on leaves and bark. At 2:52, the giraffe with its head folded down is sleeping. For many years, zoologists actually believed giraffes never slept. Apparently, they didn't spend enough time with them though, because I witnessed them sleeping fairly often.All photographs are the property of Dafttool & cannot be reproduced or used without the expressed authorization of Dafttool.

Channel: Pets & Animals
Uploaded: April 21, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Author: dafttool

Length: 04:18
Rating: 4.38
Views: 76238

Tags: abandoned  animal  baby  birth  bottlefed  dafttool  exotic  giraffe  kissing  man  nature  photography  reticulated  ungulate  wildlife  zoo  

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