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The giraffe's head and neck are held up by large muscles and a nuchal ligament, which are anchored by long thoracic vertebrae spines, giving them a hump. [17] [62] [35] Adult male reticulated giraffe feeding high on an acacia, in Kenya. The giraffe's neck vertebrae have ball and socket joints.
The Giraffidae are a family of ruminant artiodactyl mammals that share a recent common ancestor with deer and bovids.This family, once a diverse group spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, presently comprises only two extant genera, the giraffe (between one and eight, usually four, species of Giraffa, depending on taxonomic interpretation) and the okapi (the only known species of Okapia).
In okapi, the male's ossicones are smaller in proportion to the head, and taper towards their tips, forming a sharper point than the comparatively blunt giraffe ossicone. Whereas female giraffes have reduced ossicones, female okapi lack ossicones entirely. The morphology of ossicones in the extinct relatives of giraffes and okapi varies widely.
The spotting pattern extends throughout the legs but not the upper part of the face. The neck and rump patches tend to be fairly small. The subspecies also has a white ear patch. [9]: 51 Around 13,000 animals are estimated to remain in the wild; and about 20 are kept in zoos. [5] South African giraffe (G. g. giraffa), also known as Cape giraffe
[2] [3] The West African giraffe was also eradicated from Senegal, being native to some sections of southeastern Niger. [2] This fact originally led zoologists to believe that the Senegalese giraffe was a distinctly different population of Giraffa camelopardalis peralta, although the different coat colors and body structures said otherwise. [2]
Giraffoidea is a superfamily that includes the families Climacoceratidae, Prolibytheriidae, and Giraffidae.The only extant members in the superfamily are the giraffes and okapi.
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The northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), also known as three-horned giraffe, [2] is the type species of giraffe, G. camelopardalis, and is native to North Africa, although alternative taxonomic hypotheses have proposed the northern giraffe as a separate species. [3] [1]