baby animal

I’ve always liked giraffes. I had been taught that giraffes are one of two living species (the other being the okapi) of the family Giraffidae which had evolved from palaeomerycids during the early part of the Miocene epoch. I was taught that they are even-toed ungulate mammals and were herbivores to boot. I was taught that they definitely did not dance.

Silly me.

Fortunately I found this book Giraffes? Giraffes! The book review in that link says it all…

“Giraffes? Giraffes! is the first in the series, and puts forth the following novel theories: that giraffes were not part of any evolutionary chain, but came here from Neptune, by way of very long (but convenient and fast) escalators; that giraffes are expert dancers, but they become angry if you ask them about their dancing; that giraffes control over 90 percent of what we see in mirrors; that the Giraffe navy is as strong as ever, contrary to recent claims in the popular press.”

I KNEW IT!

Well I didn’t really know know it but I had suspected as much.

Imagine my delight when we went to the zoo and the baby giraffe was out. She and her mother were kept out of the public eye until a few weeks ago. She is 14 months old, is 6 foot tall, weighs 105 lbs and is already proficient in tap and jazz. She will eventually reach 16 feet and weigh approximately 2500 lbs. She looks tiny compared to the other giraffes.

She’s such a doll. She pretty stayed in the same spot for about 20 minutes, then she went over to the fence and tried to nibble on it. The poor thing learned the hard way that the fence is electrified. She wasn’t hurt but she was very confused. She went right back to her spot and stood there looking at the fence to see what else it would do.

You can see how tiny she looks in this photo.