We love watching giraffes in Africa. They are so graceful especially when they are walking, but also when they are standing or eating or even when they are fighting. It is usually the males that fight and they do it by what is called “necking.”
When you first watch a pair of male giraffes necking you might think it is a male and female getting ready to mate. But after you watch for a minute or two you realize just how violently they are hitting each other.
Basically what they do is pull their head back and hit the other giraffe in the neck, leg or chest with their horns.
Giraffe’s neck are obviously long but they really aren’t much different than the neck of any other mammal in that they contain seven cervical vertebra, the same number as in a human or a dog. Their neck vertebra are just longer than ours.
The fight shown here lasted several minutes and one of the giraffes was bleeding when it was over. They were really hitting each other hard until another male appeared. The second the third giraffe came close the other two stopped fighting and wandered off as if nothing had happened.
Here is your trivia for the day: Once two male giraffes stop fighting they some times start caressing each other and one mounts the other. Male – male mounting is actually more common than male – female. Who knew?!
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Teaching biology is my job, whether I’m retired or not.
I get that and am glad for it because you teach all of us so much about these animals.
Well, last night I learned about identifying immature bald eagles and tonight I learned about male giraffes – hmm. Good stuff and great images. Thank you.