Southern Giraffe (Giraffa giraffa) lives in open savanna across Sub-Saharan Africa. It feeds on leaves and fruits.
Fascinating facts about the Southern Giraffe
- Around 45,000 southern giraffes roam Southern Africa, a number that sounds large but sits on a razor-thin edge of survival. Their approximate population is composed of 44,500 to 50,000 individuals. Because the IUCN lists giraffes as Vulnerable to extinction.
- Living giraffes were originally classified as one species by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, under the binomial name Cervus camelopardalis. Morten Thrane Brünnich classified the genus Giraffa in 1772. Recent studies proposed the southern giraffe as a separate species of a reorganised genus Giraffa, under the binomial name Giraffa giraffa. This taxonomic journey reveals how new data can redraw the tree of life.
- Southern giraffes once vanished from parts of their historic range, but today they are re-spreading like a living restoration project. They range from South Africa, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique. After local extinctions in various places, South African giraffes have been reintroduced in many parts of Southern Africa, including Eswatini, Majete Game Reserve in Malawi, and Maputo and Zinave National Parks in Mozambique, the Angolan giraffe has been reintroduced to the Cuatir Conservation Area in Southern Angola and starting in 2023 Iona National Park on the north bank of the Cunene River.
- A southern giraffe's menu is a buffet of savannah greens, and its long neck is a built-in ladder to the highest plates. Southern giraffes usually live in savannahs and woodlands where food plants are available. Southern giraffes are herbivorous mammals. They feed on leaves, flowers, fruits and shoots of woody plants such as Acacia.
- Southern giraffes have rounded or blotched spots, some with star-like extensions on a light tan background, running down to the hooves. The South African subspecies of the southern giraffe has dark, somewhat rounded patches "with some fine projections" on a tawny background colour. The spots extend down the legs and get smaller.
Sources
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At a glance
RangeSub-Saharan Africa
HabitatOpen savanna
DietLeaves and fruits
About the Southern Giraffe
Across the sun-drenched savannas, the southern giraffe roams with stately elegance, its impossibly long neck bending and twisting as it navigates a world of treetop canopies and grassy expanses. With each languid stride, its coat of patchwork browns and creams seems to blend seamlessly into the dappled shade, as if this gentle giant is woven from the very fabric of the African landscape itself. As it moves, the giraffe's large, dark eyes take in every detail of its surroundings, a quiet intelligence guiding its every step through the wild and beautiful world it calls home.
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Southern Giraffe photographed on Feravox
