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Inventory / Threat status

  • According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 27.01.2018), only 1399 Rothschild’s giraffes remain in the wild. It is one of the rarest giraffe subspecies.
  • On December 8, 2016, the IUCN upgraded the giraffe on the Red List of Threatened Species from “least concern” to “vulnerable”.
  • Giraffe populations have decreased by up to 40% in the last 30 years.
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Facts about the Rothschild giraffe (Giraffa camelopardialis)

Record-breaking

  • Communication: Infrasound (low tones – less than 20 Hz)
  • Blood pressure three times higher than that of a human
  • Largest heart of all land animals, weight of the heart: 11 kg, up to 75 liters of blood/minute are pumped through the circulatory system.
  • A network of finely branched arteries in the head, which absorbs the incoming blood like a sponge, prevents the blood from flowing away too quickly when the giraffe raises its head too rapidly. Extremely strong valves in the jugular vein prevent the blood from rushing back to the heart at excessive speed.

Facts about the Rothschild giraffe

  • Body height: 4.50 – 5.80 m
  • Weight: 500 – 800 kg
  • Lifespan: up to 28 years
  • Running speed: up to a maximum of 50 km/hour
  • Spot patterns as identification: no two animals are marked like each other.
  • Habitat: Tree and shrub savannas, predominantly in Uganda
  • It towers above all others – it is the largest land mammal and perfectly adapted to feed on tree leaves. With its long tongue, it wraps itself around branches and tears off leaves, even from thorny acacias. At this altitude, it has no competitors for food.

Reproduction

  • Giraffes do not have a mating season determined by the seasons. Our late giraffe bull, Yoda, made several successful mating attempts with our female giraffe in 2018!
  • After a gestation period of about 400 to 460 days (a rather long time!), a young animal measuring 1.70 meters to 1.90 meters is born.
  • The young animal is nursed for about a year, but starts nibbling on buds and leaves after just a few weeks.
  • Giraffes are “fully grown” at about 10 years of age, but female giraffes reach sexual maturity at about 3.5 years and males a year later.

How many vertebrae does a giraffe’s long neck have?

Quite simply – exactly seven cervical vertebrae, like almost all mammals (only manatees and sloths have varying numbers of 6-8 cervical vertebrae). The length of the neck, however, is not due to a greater number of cervical vertebrae, but rather to their length. A middle cervical vertebra measures approximately 35 centimeters.

How long is a giraffe’s tongue, actually?

The giraffe’s muscular, prehensile tongue is approximately 45 centimeters long and bluish-black. Even young giraffes have a bluish-black tongue. With this prehensile tongue, the giraffe grasps acacia leaves like a loop. Giraffes graze almost constantly: nearly 15 hours a day. A giraffe consumes about 100 kg of food daily. When giraffes eat grass or drink, they must spread or bend their long front legs to reach the ground.

Giraffes know the acacia trick

The acacia branches have thorns that entwine their leaves like barbed wire. Acacias fill their leaves with tannin, a highly toxic substance. The giraffes aren’t bothered by this – they slither their long tongues past the thorns to reach the coveted leaves. The poison doesn’t harm the animals, as they use their saliva as a countermeasure to neutralize the toxin in their mouths. This produces long strands of saliva. But the acacia doesn’t give up. As soon as the giraffe begins to eat the leaves, the ants living on the acacia rush to attack. The ants land on the giraffe’s head and neck and try to bite it. If the ants manage to reach the sensitive inner lining of the nostrils or the gums, it becomes too unpleasant for the giraffe, and it turns away to walk off.