In the wild it is difficult to decide with certainty which giraffe calf belongs to which mother and impossible to determine the calf’s father. It is only in zoos that an offspring’s parents are known so that problems of heredity can be studied. Giraffe make a particularly interesting field of study in that individual variations are sometimes traits that have hitherto been thought to differentiate an entire race. In particular horn growth, spotting and colouration have been suggested as inherited