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Congenital and Neoplastic Cranial Deformities in Wild Giraffe (Giraffa spp.)

Congenital deformities and neoplasia are poorly documented in wildlife, owing to the difficulty of detection in wild populations. Congenital deformities may lead to premature mortality, thus reducing the chances of thorough documentation. Importantly, neoplasia diagnoses depend on either sampling suspicious lesions from living individuals or access to fresh, undisturbed carcasses, which can prove challenging. We describe five cases of suspected congenital cranial deformities (midfacial cleft, wry nose, and brachygnathia inferior) and two possible cases of cranial neoplasia (orbital bone mass

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Ecology Of African Grazing And Browsing Mammals

Africa is the earth’s second largest continent, comprising 20% of its surface. Largely tropical, Africa extends as well into temperate zones to 37°N and 35°S. Eastern and southern Africa display steep elevation gradients due to the prevalence there of volcanic orogeny and rifting (29). Local landscapes are distinguished by substantial geological heterogeneity, dissected land forms, and resultant steep gradients of precipitation and vegetation. The consequent pronounced fragmentation of habitats and sharp juxtaposition of distinct vegetation types, combined with climatic oscillations

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Changes in Social Interaction Adolescent Male Giraffes (Giraffa Camelopardalis) as they Shift from a Social to Solitary Lifestyle

Social interactions that result in preferential relationships between individuals have been observed in multiple species of mammals. Female mammals tend to stay in long-term associations with other females, while males rarely maintain such interactions once they reach sexual maturity. For example, adolescent male giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) form bachelor herds in the wild and shift to a solitary lifestyle when they reach adulthood. Males in bachelor herds engage in social interactions and display preference and avoidance behaviors toward one another, indicating

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Does tooth wear influence ageing? A comparative study across large herbivores

We test whether the intensity of tooth wear influences the strength of actuarial senescence across species of large herbivores. We collected from the literature data on tooth wear in the wild (measured as the slope of the regression of log-transformed M1 crown height on age), longevity (measured as the age at which 90% of individuals are dead) and two metrics of actuarial senescence in captive populations (rate of senescence between 6 and 12 years of age and Gompertz rate of

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Giraffe Social Behaviour

Many features recommend the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) for behavioural study: it is big, abundant, conspicuous, active by day, reasonably trusting of people, deliberate, and the best self-marked animal in existence. Surprisingly, its social behaviour has been largely neglected. We studied giraffe exclusively for the following periods: February–March, 1975 and January–December, 1977 in the Serengeti National Park, July 1979–June 1980 in the Arusha National Park, and January–October, 1981 in the Tarangire National Park, totalling 3264 hours of observation directed principally to

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Enamel hypoplasia provides insights into early systemic stress in wild and captive giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis)

Enamel hypoplasia, a developmental tooth defect, provides a permanent record of systemic stress during early life. The incidence and distribution of linear enamel hypoplasia has been used by anthropologists and palaeontologists to assess the health status of past populations but has not been applied by wildlife biologists studying extant animals. This study investigates enamel hypoplasia in 23 Giraffa camelopardalis skulls from wild and captive animals of various ages and sex to determine whether any systemic stress events are unique to

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Tactile encounters in a herd of captive giraffe

The behavior of the members of the herd of 18 giraffes at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, was studied for 5 months. The individuals were tolerant of each other, seldom fighting, not even over a receptive female. Sexually active males were the most active in initiating encounters. Calves showed little interest in the adult members of the herd. The 24-year-old male Ml, formerly the dominant male, seldom interacted with the other animals. Nosing and licking were the most common types

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On comparing the behaviour of zoo housed animals with wild conspecifics as a welfare indicator, using the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) as a model

To assess the validity of using wild behavioral data as a welfare indicator for zoo animals, the time budgets of 19 captive giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), from four zoos were compared with the time budgets of wild giraffe from Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Differences were shown to exist between the behavior of wild and captive giraffe. However, only the duration of lying differed significantly across zoos. Correlations demonstrated that both enclosure size and feed restriction affected the locomotor activity of the

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