What are the horns of a giraffe called? Why does a giraffe have a long neck, horns and spots? All about giraffes. Description of the giraffe, appearance, characteristics

There is historical evidence that in those days when the Sahara was still covered with a plant carpet and inhabited by all the current inhabitants of the savannah, the ancient Egyptians caught wild giraffes in it and brought them to their cities.

Story

For the first time in Ancient Rome The giraffe was brought by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. The inhabitants of Rome called this cute creature a camelopard, mistakenly assuming that it was a cross between a camel (“camelus”) and a leopard (“pardus”). The word "giraffe" is Arab origin, in the Russian language for centuries used in both the masculine and feminine gender. IN modern language The norm is to use this word only in the masculine gender.

Modern Europe The giraffe was introduced only in the century before last, when in 1826, the Viceroy of Egypt Pasha Mehmet presented one young giraffe to the kings of France and Great Britain.

Body structure

The giraffe's body has an amazing anatomical structure. His body is short and dense, his back is sloping, his head is very small with surprisingly large bright eyes, large soft and extremely mobile ears and two strange growths on the forehead. These growths are called “ossicones” or “horns”. A newborn giraffe already has ossicones. They are formed in the embryonic stage separately from the frontal bones.

But the giraffe has an extremely long neck and legs, making it the longest and relatively the shortest mammal on the planet. Thus, its head is about 5-6 meters above the ground, while the body height does not exceed 4 meters.

Since the head of this wonderful beast is two meters above the level of its heart, the latter has to pump up an unusually high column of blood. It’s not for nothing that the thickness of the wall of the giraffe’s carotid artery is 12 millimeters, which allows it to withstand colossal arterial pressure, which is twice as much in a giraffe as in a human.

There may be a misconception that such a length of the neck is achieved due to the huge number of vertebrae, but this is not at all the case. All mammals, including humans, have seven cervical vertebrae, but they different sizes. So, small rodents have tiny vertebrae, while a giraffe has very large ones.

Why does a giraffe have a long neck?

So why does a giraffe need this? Long neck? The answer is very simple - with its help, he plucks leaves and shoots from the tops of trees. In African savannas it has many herbivorous neighbors - antelopes, zebras and many others. And each of them has to dine on his own “floor.” It is inconvenient for a giraffe to pluck low-growing grass, but it can easily reach the very tops of trees, and at such a height it has no competitors.

Why does a giraffe need horns?

Horns because it is a cloven-hoofed ruminant.

Males and females have a pair of short, blunt horns covered with skin on the top of their heads. In males they are more massive and longer - up to 23 cm. Sometimes there is a third horn, on the forehead, approximately between the eyes; in males it is more common and more developed. Two bony outgrowths in the upper part of the back of the head, to which the neck muscles and ligaments are attached, can also grow greatly, resembling the shape of horns, which are called posterior, or occipital. In some individuals, usually old males, both three true horns and two posterior ones are well developed; they are called "five-horned" giraffes. Sometimes in old males other bony outgrowths are observed on the skull.

Although the baby giraffe is born without horns, the place of their future appearance is marked by tufts of black hair, under which there is cartilage. Gradually, the cartilaginous tissue ossifies, turning into small horns, which then begin to grow. Tufts of black fur remain with the giraffe for several years, then they wear off and disappear.

If, nevertheless, there is a need to find out the seniority in the herd, a kind of duel takes place between the largest males. It begins with a challenge: a contender for highest rank heads towards the enemy with an arched neck and lowered head, threatening him with its horns. These, in general, harmless horns, together with a heavy head, constitute the giraffe’s main weapon in the fight for primacy.

Why does a giraffe need spots?

Masking coloring. The pattern and color of the giraffe are amazingly beautiful - on a light yellow background there are various dark spots that vary greatly. It is impossible to find two completely identically colored giraffes. Just like a human fingerprint, the spotted pattern of each individual giraffe is unique.

The giraffe's variegated coloring seems too bright, but in reality it perfectly camouflages the animals. It should be taken into account that animals are more often found in a group of umbrella acacias against the background of burnt foliage of bushes. And under the sheer rays of the sun, a mosaic of shadows and sun spots is created on the trees and animals, which combines with the spotted pattern of the giraffe and, as it were, softens its outline among the bright highlights of the foliage.

Active protection. In order to live in African savannah, its inhabitants require excellent vision and keen hearing, the ability to run quickly and actively defend themselves. All this can be attributed to giraffes, which are perfectly equipped for life in the savannah - they are not only provided with camouflage colors and patterns, but also see far and hear well. Yes and natural enemies giraffes have few, since among the predators only lions can attack them, and even then only in a group. But the giraffe’s enormous height, durable skin, and powerful hooves successfully help defend against a single enemy. However, the main enemy of this beautiful animal was, and still remains, the human hunter.

In the group of herbivores, giraffes, due to their high growth, excellent vision and behavioral characteristics, play the role of a “sentinel”. They are able to see from a distance silently creeping in tall grass predator from the cat family.

Sometimes giraffes take flight and can reach speeds above 50 km/h. And then their nearby relatives follow their example. But more often, having warned other animals about the danger with a few swings of their tail, giraffes fearlessly go out to meet the predator.

Giraffe tongue

Many herbivores are known to use their tongues to capture food, but none of them do it as masterfully as the giraffe. Its tongue is very long and flexible, reaching a length of about half a meter. Slowly and lazily, the giraffe picks the topmost young shoots from the tops of mimosas, which are his favorite delicacy. At the same time, his lips do not suffer from mimosa thorns, just as the lips of a camel do not suffer from thorns. The tip of its muzzle is covered with special hairs - vibrissae, which sense the approach of thorns.

The giraffe rarely nibbles steppe grass, preferring only succulent shoots that are rich in moisture. Getting all the necessary liquid from food, giraffes can be quite far from water sources. However, during the dry season they go in search of a reservoir.

To drink water, the giraffe has to take strange poses. Sometimes he spreads his front legs wide and tilts the front of his body and neck forward, other times he has to bend his legs or put one of them forward and the other back.

Giraffe Dream

Giraffes sleep at least interesting pose. Lying first on their chest, during sleep they turn over on their side, tuck one or both front legs to their stomach, throw their neck back and place their head on the back thigh. Giraffes' sleep is very light and short-lived. They can go without sleep for several days and simply rest while standing.

Giraffe running and dynamics

A giraffe's speed at a gallop can reach 56 kilometers per hour, while its movements seem smooth, as if in slow motion. The neck serves as a balancer and controls the rhythm of its movements. At a slow pace, a giraffe can only move at an amble, only in this case its long legs do not touch each other.

Unfortunately, few of the giraffes brought to our latitudes endure captivity for long. Many of them quickly die from a specific bone disease called “giraffe disease.” Most likely, it is caused by lack of exercise and inappropriate food. However, in Lately the situation has improved slightly, which is apparently due to a more competent approach to creating conditions for keeping these animals.

Giraffe(lat. Giraffa camelopardalis) is a rather colorful and unusual in appearance animal, belonging to the class mammals, order ruminant artiodactyls, family giraffidae, genus giraffes.

Description of the giraffe, appearance, characteristics.

The giraffe is the tallest animal in the world. The height (height) of the giraffe reaches 5.5 - 6.1 meters, a third of which falls on its famous neck. The weight of a male giraffe can range from 500 kg to 1900 kg, and the heart weighs as much as 12 kg: about 60 liters of blood passes through its valves per minute, and the pressure inside the vessels exceeds the standard pressure of an average person by 3 times. Due to the high density of blood, even abrupt change The position of the giraffe's head does not lead to a deterioration in the animal's condition. Despite its impressive length, the giraffe’s neck fully meets the standard characteristics of a mammal - the giraffe has 7 cervical vertebrae, each of which reaches a length of 25 cm. The main jugular vein has in its design special locking valves that are responsible for a uniform supply of blood with the same pressure.

The giraffe has quite interesting language: dark, almost brown in color, long and very muscular, it allows the animal to grab tree branches at great heights, protruding 40-45 cm. With such a long tongue, giraffes can even clean their own ears.

Giraffe color.

The color of the giraffe is also worthy of attention: the pattern of spots on the skin is absolutely unique and individual, like a person’s fingerprints, and is never repeated in two individuals. The head of both the male and female giraffe is decorated with a pair of horns covered with fur, big eyes fringed with long eyelashes and small ears crown the elongated head of the giraffe.

Giraffe legs.

Despite the subtle overall dimensions legs, these mammals run well (the speed of the giraffe is 60 km/h) and jump well, overcoming barriers more than 1.5 meters high. True, the tallest animal in the world can only actively move on a hard surface - the giraffe avoids swampy soil and rivers.

How do giraffes sleep?

The giraffe bends its long legs under itself, moving one of them to the side, and then, bending into a ball, puts its head on its croup. Giraffes can also sleep standing up.

Sleep does not last long: during the night the giraffe gets up every now and then to drink or eat something. The mammal does not require many hours of sleep - a giraffe only needs from 10 minutes to 2 hours of sleep per day.

How giraffes sleep

Types of giraffes.

In the giraffe family, only 1 species of giraffe is distinguished; the remaining 5 species are considered extinct. Giraffes are classified mainly depending on where the animal lives and its color pattern. Experts count 9 subspecies (varieties) of giraffes:

• lives in eastern Sudan and western Ethiopia. It has distinctive chestnut spots edged with rich white lines; males are also distinguished by an impressive bony growth on the frontal part of the skull;

• Ugandan giraffe (Rothschild) lives in Uganda. Known throughout the world for the beauty of its large brown spots, separated by wide white stripes;

• Reticulated giraffe (Somali) lives in northern Kenya and southern Somalia. A network of juicy brown-red spots of medium size with sharp edges and thin white lines distinguishes this subspecies from a number of relatives; females often lack a growth on the skull;

• lives in Namibia and Botswana. Large brown spots with elongated accent corners give the animal’s color an extraordinary attractiveness;

• Kordofan giraffe lives in western Sudan and the Central African Republic. Notable for the unevenness of the spots, the density of which increases below the hocks;

• Masai giraffe lives in southern Kenya and Tanzania. The spots mostly decorate the legs, the shape of which is more like a star;

• lives in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique. The golden skin is decorated with dark round spots that rarely reach the hooves;

• lives in Zambia. The lighter skin has medium-sized jagged dark spots.

• is in danger of extinction. In 2007, the number of individuals was only 175 animals. Habitat: Chad.

Where does the giraffe live?

The giraffe lives in the savannas of sunny Africa; the giraffe does not live on other continents. Over the past 50 years, giraffe herds can often be found in the southern and south-eastern regions of the Sahara, as well as drier areas of uninhabited land. Due to its elongated body structure and low water consumption, this animal can live in the open forests of Africa.

Horns? Perhaps these are horns? These are certainly not antennas: the Serengeti region is not (as far as we know) home to giraffe telecommunications. They are called ossicones, and giraffes are born with them.

Photo: flickr.com

Photo: flickr.com

It would seem that this fact could lead to problems during childbirth for the giraffe mother. However, she hides a secret up her metaphorical sleeve. When a baby giraffe is born (called a calf), the ossicones are not attached to the skull and therefore remain flexible - at least they bend easily as the calf passes through the birth canal. Plus they are made from cartilage, not living bone.

Photo: flickr.com

Photo: flickr.com

It is very important. Cartilage is rubber-like tissue that protects the ends of long bones. We have cartilage around many of the components that make up our body, including the ear and nose. Thus, cartilage is much less flexible than muscle, but, on the other hand, is not as rigid and hard as bone. However, ossicone does indeed turn into bony when the giraffe grows and reaches maturity. In fact, this process begins a week after birth. The process of ossification is called ossification, which is how the strange cone-shaped protuberances get their name.

Photo: flickr.com

Ossicon is almost always covered with fur. Sometimes, however, the fur of adult males becomes peeling. As male giraffes (bulls) get older and the ossicone fuses tightly with the skull - they use the horns for their intended purpose.

Photo: flickr.com

Photo: flickr.com

For the fight. There are times when an adult male must fight off an opponent. Often the issue is resolved quickly: just a few blows to the opponent’s neck. However, sometimes things can get heated. Opponents are very intolerant, and when this happens, a blow follows. If they can't hit the neck, they aim for the sacrum. Check out this fascinating video showing the destruction that a fight between two mature males can cause.

There is not enough research in this part of the fossil record to determine whether ossicones evolved. Of course, the base from which deer antlers grow is similar to ossicone. Many scientists believe that since the evolved ancestors of giraffes had horns, ossicones played a supporting role for them.
Can you imagine the damage that could be caused if giraffes had horns?

Photo: flickr.com

Photo: flickr.com

Photo: flickr.com

So why did the antlers disappear? As you saw in the video, adult males fight with their long necks almost wrapped around each other. Because their necks are thinner, this means that frontal attacks using their horns would result in too much damage. a large number deaths. After all, this is a fight, not a fight against death. As the neck became longer, the need for horns disappeared. This is, of course, just a theory, but it seems to be the reason why the horns eventually disappeared, leaving only the ossicones on the giraffe's head.

Photo: flickr.com

But only time and other scientific research will show whether ossicones are the fruit of evolution, or whether they perform another unknown function.

Why does a person need hair on his arms?
Why does a cow need four teats?
NO WHAT.

Why do animals have unnecessary organs?

Because these organs were present in our evolutionary ancestors.

Removing an organ that was present in our ancestors but is no longer needed is a complex operation. There are two reasons for this difficulty.

• Firstly, the body cannot undergo major repairs - that’s all changes occur during life- and these changes should not prevent the body from feeding, reproducing, and winning the struggle for existence. (This is like converting a steam locomotive into a diesel locomotive at full speed. Will you take it?)
• Secondly, we have everything in the body is interconnected: if you take away one thing, everything else will change. For example, the hair on our arms: if we start removing them, then the hair on our heads, eyelashes and eyebrows may inadvertently disappear along with us. Does anyone need this?

Thus, if an unnecessary organ is not harmful, but just useless, then it is cheaper to leave it.

Complex example

The eyes of vertebrates are outgrowths of the brain (brain vesicles [Fig. 2]). Ours with you transparent ancestors did not care what they had the eyes are inside the body(directly in the brain [Fig. 4]) - light is distinguished from darkness, and okay. Gradually, in order to see better, the eyes of our ancestors shifted towards the surface of the body and eventually “pressed from the inside to the skin.”

Our eyes are “under a layer of skin” - not under such a thick/woolly layer like that of moles, but still. When light, having passed through the cornea-lens-vitreous body, finally reaches the retina of our eye - do you think who it meets there? With cone rods? Nothing like that [Fig. 1]. Visual receptors are located inside the retina, and in front of them they sat imposingly nerve cells and blood vessels. In order not to obscure the receptors too much, the nerve cells are discolored (deprived of the myelin sheath), because of this they work worse - but what to do? You can't discolor blood - so it actually darkens the retina (and makes the eyes appear red in photographs).

Octopuses [Fig. 3] have eyes surprisingly similar to ours, but their nerves and blood vessels are located under the light-sensitive cells (and not above, like ours). It is believed that the eyes of mollusks were originally pits on the surface of the body (and not outgrowths of the brain, like ours), so they were immediately made “in the mind.”

Rice. 1. The retina of our eye: light comes from the left. At the far right end are the visual receptors - rods and cones.

How can the design of a filter floating in the water column be improved? There is a need to effectively detect accumulations of suspended particles in water. For this you need good vision. How to ensure the progress of the visual organs located deep in the body (in the neural tube)? Bring the section of the neural tube containing light receptors closer to the surface. How can we increase the resolution of such eyes? Transform the area of ​​the integument located above the eye growing from the inside into a light-refracting lens - a crystalline lens. Dmitry Shabanov “Man as a victim of evolutionary history”

It is easy to understand that the method of blind trial and error, which is used by Great Designers, inevitably leads to the appearance of not the most appropriate designs. It is completely natural that both in animals and flora besides the expedient there is also everything not by that much it is inappropriate for selection to destroy it immediately. K. Lorenz “Aggression (so-called “evil”)”

If the entire genome is permeated with pleiotropic connections, then neutral traits can exist and be maintained due to pleiotropy, through selection for one of the members of that chain of connections in the body, which was successfully called by P.V. Terentyev correlation galaxies. In this case, traits that are neutral in themselves may appear on the surface, but their fixation in the population was not carried out due to stochastic processes, but as a by-product of adaptive selection. essential features, correlatively associated with neutral traits due to pleiotropy. N.N. Vorontsov “Development of evolutionary ideas in biology”

© D.V. Pozdnyakov, 2009-2019