Giraffes are, without a doubt, my favourite animal and I’m of the belief they should be more people’s favourite animals as well. In this blog, I have one simple objective. To educate you in the beauty and epicness of giraffes. This is why giraffes are awesome. This is also the answer to the question I often ask myself. Why do I love giraffes so much?
They are tall
The first reason I love giraffes is their height. I’m tall and giraffes are tall. It’s like we’re meant to be.
You obviously don’t need me to tell you that giraffes are tall. But here I am telling you anyway. They are the tallest mammals on Earth.
The average giraffe will grow to around 18 feet tall which is 5.5 metres. Their legs alone are taller than most humans.
The tallest giraffe to have lived (well recorded to have lived) was George who moved to Chester zoo in the 1950s. When George was just 9 years old he was 20 feet tall, which is 6.1 metres.
For reference, the average height of a 9-year-old boy human is 4.7 feet tall, that’s one heck of a height distance.
But being 20 feet tall wasn’t enough for George apparently he used to use his incredible height to steal visitor’s hats- I never met him, but I love this giraffe. 1969 was a sad year when George passed away.
Massive hearts- literally
My second reason for loving giraffes is their hearts.
Giraffes are known for being peaceful animals. So they have massive hearts in the sense that they’re friendly. But giraffes literally have massive hearts. A giraffe’s heart is about 2 feet long which is pretty much the size of a four-month-old baby.
Not heavy sleepers
Reason number 3 which rhymes with wee for my loving of giraffes
Giraffes need only about 30 minutes of sleep every day. They do their sleeping in small naps and whilst standing up!
Despite me not being a good sleeper I can guarantee I would not be very good with only 30 minutes of sleep every day.
Their babies are quick learners
Reason number 4 which hopefully isn’t a bore.
I’ve said for a long time. Human babies are useless. We can do nothing for ourselves (apart from breathing, etc.). Babies in the animal world make us look stupid.
Giraffe babies- or calves as they’re called- can walk within an hour of being born. A human baby can’t even hold their head up!
What do they eat?
Giraffes are herbivores and can eat up to 45 kilograms of leaves and twigs every day. This really means they take the saying “eat your greens” incredibly seriously. And I like animals who take sayings very seriously.
A slightly short neck
This heading isn’t a joke. A giraffe’s neck is nearly always just slightly too short to comfortably drink from lakes or pick up anything they drop. This means they have to awkwardly bend their front legs. You can see from the image below it doesn’t look like the most comfortable way to have a refreshing drink.
Thankfully giraffes only have to drink water every few days as they get most of the liquid they need from the plants they eat.
A giraffes tongue
I’m honestly not sure how much detail I need to go into for this next point about why giraffes are awesome but they have black tongues. Some people argue their tongues are dark blue but the point is they aren’t pink.
The reason giraffes have darker-coloured tongues is to protect them from sunburn! They stick out their tongue so often (to eat, not at others) that a pink tongue would get burnt by the savannah heat.
Oh- and their tongues can be up to 50 cm long, so can definitely lick the bogies out of their noses.
Spot the difference!
Giraffes have spots on their skin and two giraffes can’t have the same spot pattern. So spotting the difference is really easy, as they’re all different.
And as someone who has always struggled with spot the difference activities, I appreciate that.
Dinner plate-sized feet
Giraffes have the same size feet- well hooves as dinner plates (about 30 cm). Not the sort of thing you want standing on your foot. I dread to imagine the power they could put behind it if they decided to kick at something as well.
So that is why giraffes are awesome. What did you think? Let me know in the comments what your favourite animal is.