Masai Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi
Masai Giraffe · Masai Mara · 19 February 2020
A Masai Giraffe browsing the acacias of the Mara, the giraffe of Kenya and Tanzania and the biggest of the lot. It lives on the savanna wherever there are trees tall enough to be worth the neck, and it can go weeks without drinking, taking the water from the leaves.
Told from the other giraffes by the blotches: ragged, vine-leaf edges rather than the clean-edged polygons of the reticulated giraffe further north. The neck holds seven vertebrae, the same number as ours, each one enormously drawn out. Getting blood to the top takes a heart of around eleven kilograms and roughly twice human blood pressure, with valves in the neck veins to stop it spiking when the animal lowers its head to drink.
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