"It's an incredibly difficult thing to bring a giraffe down. They can kill a lion with a single blow from their feet."
-Joanna Lumley
Today, my younger sister complimented me on the "giraffes" I drew yesterday. Apparently I didn't do such a great job drawing those elephants. Hopefully her compliment was more a reflection on her inability to recall the correct noun than my inability to draw en elephant.
Anyways, giraffes are actually pretty amazing animals. Here are some fun facts about them:
- The giraffes neck contains only 7 vertebrae, despite it's amazing length. Anchor muscles on its shoulders help to hold it up.
- Males undergo "necking" contests to compete for mates.
- Giraffes can run up to 34 miles per hour. However, due to the high blood pressure required to pump blood up to their heads through their long necks, they cannot sustain this pace.
- A giraffe's kick can decapitate a lion!
- The hooves of a fully grown giraffe are about the size of a dinner plate.
- A giraffe's tail, at 8 feet long, is one of the longest in the world.
- Giraffes also have extremely long tongues (of a purple-black color) at 18 inches in length.
- Giraffes love to eat acacia, a thorny tree. Thus, their saliva is antiseptic in order to help their thorn-wounded tongues heal correctly.
- Female giraffes remain standing while giving birth, and the baby drops to the ground. Despite the long drop, the calf is up and running a few hours later.
- A giraffe consumes about 140 pounds of foliage per day.
(All of those facts are from http://www.kenya-travel-packages.com/interesting-facts-about-giraffes.html)
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