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Low effective mechanical advantage of giraffes’ limbs during walking reveals trade-off between limb length and locomotor performance

Giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) possess specialized locomotor morphology, namely elongate and gracile distal limbs. While this contributes to their overall height and enhances feeding behavior, we propose that the combination of long limb segments and modest muscle lever arms results in low effective mechanical advantage (EMA, the ratio of in-lever to out-lever moment arms), when compared with other cursorial mammals. To test this, we used a combination of experimentally measured kinematics and ground reaction forces (GRFs), musculoskeletal modeling, and inverse dynamics

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Understanding community attitudes toward the Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffa angolensis) and its potential reintroduction into Iona National Park, Angola

Wildlife introductions are often proceeded by habitat suitability studies, although to date the possible impact of human communities’ attitudes towards reintroductions of species have seldom been assessed in any detail. Iona National Park (NP) in Angola is inhabited by people, predominately on the eastern fringes, and as such any reintroduction would benefit from the buy-in of these communities. Therefore, understanding community attitudes is essential for successfully reintroducing the Angolan giraffe (Giraffa giraffe angolensis) in Iona NP where the species has

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Social Network-Proximity Association: Preliminary Evaluation of Giraffe Sociality in a Zoo-Housed Group

Giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) are found in zoos all over the world. In recent years, numerous researchers have documented complex sociality in these mammals. They highlighted that giraffes have non-random preferences in their choices of social partners, which can depend on various factors such as age, sex, and kinship. One of the still little-known aspects is how the social structure of giraffes is formed in captivity. Moreover, the scientific literature about some aspects of the social structure of giraffes in captivity

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A New Species of Rhipicephalus (Acari: Ixodidae), a Parasite of Giraffes in Kenya

A new tick species belonging to the genus Rhipicephalus Koch, 1844 (Acari: Ixodidae), namely, Rhipicephalus walkerae n. sp., is described. The male and female of this species are similar to those of several species in the Rhipicephalus appendiculatus group but can be distinguished from them by the very dense pattern of medium-sized punctations covering the conscutum and scutum, long and narrow dorsal prolongation of the spiracular plate, and relatively short dorsal cornua; in addition, the male has long and narrow

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Vertical zonation of browse quality in tree canopies exposed to a size-structured guild of African browsing ungulates

We investigated whether the food quality of tree foliage for African savanna browsers varies across the feeding height range of the guild. This was to address the question of why giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) generally feed at a higher level in the canopy than is accessible to all other browsers. We defined a giraffe browse unit (GBU) as the length of twig corresponding to the average “bite” taken by giraffes from two staple browse plants: Acacia nigrescens and Boscia albitrunca. We

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Giraffe males have longer suckling bouts than females

In polygynous mammals, females are expected to bias maternal investment in favor of male calves. The mother should invest more in males to enhance their reproductive success in adulthood, or the males require greater investment as they are bigger and stronger than females. In this study, we used nursing duration to compare the difference in the amount of maternal investment provided by females. We compared differences according to sex of the offspring and the influence of calves’ identification by sniffing,

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Why Giraffes have Anxiety

The location of zoos in metropolitan areas exposes animals to stressors that they are not biologically adapted to. The abundance of visitors and their close proximity to the animals causes undue harm to the creatures’ welfare, resulting in a poor quality of life.

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Ephemeral and Perpetual Diversity in Giraffa Camelopardalis

It is necessary to understand how giraffes could have evolved. We came up with Darwin’s theory, Lamarckism, and so forth. However, in a manuscript, I classified the species of Giraffa Camelopardalis in light of the heights as an arbitrary principle. Nevertheless, I wrote a paper on classifying Giraffa Camelopardalis species using heights as the reference point. It highlights the evolution of the giraffe posture in light of two characteristics of its postures, namely ephemeral diversity and perpetual diversity. Our theory

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Evaluating physiological and behavioural responses to social changes and construction in two zoo-housed female giraffes

Exposure to external repeated or long-term stressors can alter animal behaviour and physiology. At zoos, construction of new buildings and habitats is one potential unavoidable long-term stressor. During the construction of a new exhibit near the giraffe enclosure at Lincoln Park Zoo (Chicago, IL), the Zoo’s two female giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi and Giraffa reticulata, were monitored for changes in behavior and faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) levels during five phases of construction and enclosure access. The FGM analysis was validated

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Mammal road-type associations in Kruger National Park, South Africa: Common mammals do not avoid tar roads more than dirt roads

The majority of Africa’s parks and conservation areas have a vast road network, facilitating motorized vehicle game viewing. These roads have an influence that is both road type- and species-specific, on the surrounding ecosystem. Due to their higher traffic volumes, we hypothesized that tar roads and their immediate surrounds within the Kruger National Park, South Africa, are avoided to a greater extent by medium-to-large mammals than comparable dirt roads in the park. We systematically recorded the presence of medium-to-large mammal

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