Giraffes are amazing animals. We would be out driving somewhere and all of sudden you'd see a head sticking above the trees--a giraffe! They are gentle giants who often stopped eating to watch us as we watched them. Because of their size, they don't seem afraid of humans but would often come closer to our stopped vehicles. I think they were curious.
One giraffe decided to cross behind our vehicle to go munch trees on the other side of the road. The grass is always greener on the other side? The landscape looked the same to us.
They have such long eyelashes!
During one early morning game drive, we came across this pair near the river.
They each have very distinctive spots--this one had especially unique patterning. The darker color spots mean that he is a mature giraffe.
I thought the zebras would be my favorite animals in Africa, but I like giraffes even more. One of my earliest toys was a large vinyl giraffe--I can still remember the smell of the vinyl and the bright colors of the spots--but real live giraffes are even better!
Have you heard about how giraffe coat patterns vary from region to region? I can't tell if all of these giraffes have the same coat pattern, what do you think?
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Genetic_subdivision_in_the_giraffe_based_on_mitochondrial_DNA_sequences.png
Very interesting! The giraffe is the first photo seems to have the West African pattern while the last one has the South African/Angolan pattern. The West African pattern seemed more prevalent in Chobe.
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