Animal · Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya
Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The giraffe is the tallest living land animal, browsing on treetops across the savannas of Africa. Its extremely long neck and legs let it reach leaves no other grazing animal can.
Picture credit: Thomas Fuhrmann (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Thomas Fuhrmann (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Axel Tschentscher (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the giraffe live?
Home: Savannas and open woodlands of Africa.
In the wild you find it in: Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Niger.
Conservation status from the IUCN: vulnerable.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 5.5 m tall. It weighs about 1 000 kilograms. On the menu: plants.
The story behind it
Even though a giraffe's neck can be over 2 metres long, it has exactly the same number of neck bones as a human: seven, just much bigger. Its favourite food is the leaves of the thorny acacia tree, which it strips off using a tough 45 cm tongue and thick lips that barely notice the spikes. Giraffes sleep only about 30 minutes to 2 hours a day, often standing up, and give birth standing too, so newborn calves drop nearly 2 metres to the ground. Every giraffe has a unique spot pattern, like a fingerprint. Numbers have fallen sharply in recent decades, making the species vulnerable overall.
Find it on the globe
Giraffe is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How many neck bones does a giraffe have?
A giraffe has exactly seven neck bones, the same number as a human, but each one can be over 25 cm long. This is why its neck can stretch to more than 2 metres in total.
How long do giraffes sleep?
Giraffes sleep surprisingly little, often just 30 minutes to 2 hours a day, usually in short naps while standing. Lying down for long makes it hard for them to escape predators quickly.
Why are giraffes vulnerable?
Giraffe numbers have dropped by around 30% in recent decades mainly because of habitat loss, farmland expansion and some illegal hunting. This overall decline is why the species is now classed as vulnerable.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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