These famously tall animals are full of surprises and fun facts. Of all the mammals in the world, giraffes are the tallest animals as their legs itself are longer than many human beings reaching about 6 feet in length. Giraffes have 4 species and like human fingerprints, no 2 giraffes have the same coat pattern.
How Giraffes Sleep and Eat
The neck of giraffes is too long to reach the ground, that’s why it has to kneel to reach the ground to drink water. They drink water only once every few days. Most of their water intake comes from the plants they eat. Giraffes spend the maximum part of their lives standing up and they even sleep and reproduce in the same position.
Giraffe calves can stand up and walk after nearly one hour and start to eat vegetation in a week’s time. In a day they only sleep for 5 to 30 minutes and often achieve that in naps that last a minute or two.
Fascinating Anatomy
Male and female giraffes have 2 distinctive, hairy horns known as ossicones, and male giraffes use these to fight with other males. A giraffe’s feet are the size of a plate with a diameter of 30 cm and their tongues are bluish-purple which are 45 and 50 cm long. A giraffe’s heart weighs approximately 11 kilograms and is the biggest of any other mammal in the land.
When a giraffe lowers its head to drink there is a sudden change in blood pressure that can damage its system but it has valves to stop the back-flow of blood. NASA has researched this process to get inspiration for human spacesuits.