Giraffe

The most developed sense in the giraffe is sight. She is able to see a man 2 km away. Some even think that she distinguishes between colors: red, orange, yellow, green and purple.

The giraffe has a slow and supple walk. She lifts both legs on one side with each step. They say she's going amble. It can reach, at a gallop, 60km/h.

The giraffe has a unique oral apparatus in the animal world. Its black and sticky tongue, 50 cm long, slips between the sharp thorns of acacias to reach the most nourishing shoots. The giraffe spends more than 12 hours a day grazing.

The Rotchschild's giraffe is found mainly in Sudan, Uganda and Kenya. It reproduces all year round. The female is in heat one day every two weeks.

To find out if the female is in heat, the male tastes her urine, this is the flehmen. The female gives birth to her first baby giraffe at the age of 5. The birth takes about 1 to 2 hours. The mother remaining upright, the giraffe made a brutal fall of nearly 2m.

Ela, one of our Rothschild giraffes, is one of the animals to be sponsored by the Le PAL NATURE FOUNDATION.

• 
  Habitat

  Savannah and steppes
• Food

  Young shoots, tender leaves, sprays or fresh spines, bark, fruit from trees, climbing plants or creepers. Acacias, mimosaceae

Did you know ?

Due to gravity and in order to irrigate its brain, which lies 2 m above its heart, the giraffe’s blood pressure is three times higher than our own. 76 litres of blood are dispatched to the brain each minute!