Giraffe pictures and details of various types of giraffes

What sound does a giraffe make ?... here is The Sound of the Giraffe

2006-12-16T00:12:00.000-08:00

Although generally quiet, giraffes have been heard to grunt, snort and bleat.
Although very few recordings actually exist of this, we have been able to locate the "Lost" files from the collection of Z. E. Frank, known as Dolittle by his friends.

You to can now hear and even see Z. E. Franks' recreation of "The Sound of the Giraffe" as well as such acclaimed work as "The Sound of the Fish"

http://www.zefrank.com/forella/swfs/index.html

Enjoy!!

Papercraft Giraffe

2006-12-15T23:38:00.000-08:00

This papercraft Giraffe is courtesy of Canon inc.

Canon has a great site called Creative Park, where you can find absoloutely heaps of free downloads, have a look at
http://www.canon.com/c-park/

To download details of how to make this great looking giraffe visit:
http://cp.c-ij.com/europe/papercraft/nl/animal/e_giraffe_e.html

New baby Giraffes

2006-12-15T18:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy last month or two around the world for new baby giraffes..

September 27th 2006, the "Blank Park Zoo", Iowa, USA announced the birth of a baby reticulated giraffe. Named Jabulani, literally translated to meaning "happy", the male calf stood 6 foot 2 inches tall and weighed 135 pounds.

On October 7th 2006 at "Disneys Animal Kingdom", Orlando, Florida, USA a baby girl giraffe was born. Named Imara, meaning "strong" in Swahili she weighed 100 pounds and stands approximately 6 foot tall.

On October 7th 2006 at Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, England, a male reticulated calf was born at a height of 5 foot 7 inches.

On October 30th 2006 "The Bronx Zoo", New York welcomed a baby Rothschild giraffe into its family, standing at 5 foot 6 inches and weighing in at 125 pounds.

On November 9th 2006 "The San Diego Zoo", CA welcomed a baby Masai giraffe to their expanding family standing at 5 foot 8 -10 inches and weighing in at 147 pounds.

For more information on the zoos mentioned above please visit the below websites.

http://www.blankparkzoo.com/index.cfm
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/parks/parkLanding?id=AKLandingPage
http://www.zsl.org/whipsnade/
http://www.bronxzoo.com/
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/index.html

Giraffe picture.. Camelopardalis

2006-11-27T00:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, this one's a bit of a stretch, but there is a giraffe there if you look, whilst tilting your head 45 degrees to the left. Although Camelopardalis is the 18th largest constellation, it is not a particularly bright constellation, but the stars of the constellation can be connected in such a way, which will graphically show a giraffe.

The giraffe's body consists of the quadrangle of stars α Camelopardalis, β Camelopardalis, BE Camelopardalis, and γ Camelopardalis: α and β Camelopardalis being of the fourth magnitude.

The stars HR 2209 and M Camelopardalis form the head of the giraffe, and the stars M Camelopardalis and α Camelopardalis form the giraffe's long neck. Stars beta Camelopardalis and 7 Camelopardalis form the giraffe's front leg, and variable stars BE Camelopardalis and CS Camelopardalis form the giraffe's hind leg.

The constellation of Camelopardalis was included
in the educational game "Uranias Mirror" which was designed by a young lady in the early 19th Century in Great Britain to teach children and amateur astronomers the star charts.

Each of the 32 cards show a constellation and the stars that comprise it as would be visible in England. The stars are represented by small holes punched right into the card, with bigger holes to represent brighter stars. So, to learn the formation of the constellations, one would hold the cards up to a light source and see the bright holes representing the star positions. The light is diffused by tissue paper attached to the back of the card.

Camelopardalis had also initially appeared in a work
titled the "Uranographia" by Johann Bode in 1801, which Bode produced whilst working as director of the Berlin Observatory.

In size, this was the largest star atlas that had ever been published. The positions of more than 17,240 stars are given, shown over 20 star maps in a format aimed to show both artistic impression of the constellation figures but also with scientific accuracy. This work is regarded as the first reasonably complete depiction of the stars visible to the human eye.

Many thanks to:

http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/camelopardalis.htm
http://www.philaprintshop.com/leigh.html

Rothschild Giraffes

2006-11-26T22:27:00.001-08:00

The Rothschild Giraffe is named after the renowned British zoologist
Lionel Walter Rothschild, the founder of the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, which in 1937 became part of the Natural History Museum following Lionel Walters' death.

Lionel Walter Rothschild is more widely known for his love of ornithology, and following his death in August 1937 his collection boasted some 2,000 mounted mammals, a similar number of mounted birds, along with over two million butterflies and moths, 300,000 bird skins, 144 giant tortoises, 200,000 birds' eggs and 30,000 relevant books.

The Rothschild Giraffes' latin name is "Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi". The word giraffa is said by some to be derived from the Arabic word "zirafah" meaning "the tallest of all" but others state that "zirafah" is meaningless in Arabic and that a translation from a word beginning with a Z to a G would be quite unnatural. It is said to be more likely that the origin of the word would of been from the Hebrew word "ghoref" literally meaning the "back" or the "scruff of the neck". The translation of the Latin word camelopardalis is "camel marked like leopard" relating to the leopard like markings and camel like small hump that each giraffe has.

Thanks to:

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/tring/
http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/articles_4.html

New baby Rothschild Giraffe named Kijana...

2006-11-20T01:11:00.000-08:00

Following on from the recent news of a male baby giraffe born at Orana Wildlife Park on November 3rd, he has now been named.

He is called Kijana, which is a Kiswahili word for boy/son/youth. He is doing very well and Orana Wildlife Park are very pleased to now have two young, lively Giraffe boys at the Park.

The name Kijana is well known in Kenya, the typical home for the Rothschild giraffe, as this was the nickname of the former Vice President of Kenya, Michael Christopher "Kijana" Wamalwa.

Michael Wamalwa was so called Kijana as he was thought to be too young for politics when he first attempted to enter the Kenyan parliament at the age of 30 in 1974. After 2 decades of politics his opposition coalition, the National Rainbow coalition, swept to power in elections December 2002, ending 24 years of rule under President Daniel arap Moi. Although the countries celebrations were short lived as Wamalwa passed away on 23rd August 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3176789.stm

A baby giraffe whether male or female is known as a calf and by the age of 3 months old will have started to eat from shrubs and small bushes, but can also continue to suckle from it's mother until it is 10 months old.

2006-11-18T00:16:00.000-08:00

I like Giraffes.. and fortunately for me over here in New Zealand we've got a great programme supported by the Orana Wildlife Park right here in Christchurch.

Orana Wildlife Park has been involved in the international captive breeding programme for Rothschild's Giraffe for over 20 years and 13 babies have been born, including the recent addition on November 3rd 2006, (shown just here).

The Rothschild's Giraffe is the rarest of the three subspecies of giraffe found in East Africa, which are endangered in the wild due to the loss of their habitat. Their natural range is the dry savannah and open woodlands of central Africa, through Kenya and Uganda. It is believed that there are now fewer than 40 Rothschild's remaining in the wild.

In the Early 1970's Jock Leslie-Melville and his wife Betty began to raise giraffes in the grounds of their manor house http://www.giraffemanor.com/ on the outskirts of Nairobi, after hearing that the Rothschild giraffes were being hunted almost to extinction. The last 120 Rothschild's giraffes in the world lived on a large cattle ranch in the west of Kenya which was about to be taken over by the government and to then be carved up into farms. After much lobbying, the Leslie-Melvilles managed to acquire a baby giraffe whom they hand-raised and named Daisy. They were among the first people ever to hand rear a wild giraffe, and possibly to this day the only ones to succeed with this particular variety in the wild.

Daisy soon became the best-known giraffe in the world, when Betty and Jock wrote a book about their experiences titled "Raising Daisy Rothschild" and then a film was made entitled "The Last Giraffe", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079438/. Although the film raised awareness, Betty hated it, 'It was the worst experience of my life,' she recalled. During the course of making the film, 'the trainer accidentally killed two baby giraffes'.

Following their success with Daisy, the Leslie-Melvilles acquired four more baby giraffes and eventually established their own small breeding herd. They regarded the animals almost as part of the family. The baby giraffes were often fed mouth-to-mouth with carrots and biscuits. And still today guests at Giraffe Manor can dine with the giraffes...

At Orana Wildlife Park one of the most popular attractions is hand feeding the giraffes, albeit not over tea, but it is amazing how many adults, not just kids are in awe.

Thanks in part to moisture-rich foods such as acacia leaves, giraffes can generally go weeks without drinking and can eat upto 63 kg (140 lb) of leaves and twigs daily.

Giraffe gestation typically lasts between 14 and 15 months and a single calf is born, which is given birth to from height as the mother delivers her calf from a standing position and the baby falls to the ground. Newborn Giraffes are about 1.8 metres, 6 foot tall and they can grow an inch a day and just about double their height in one year.

Within just a few hours of being born, calves can generally run around and are mostly indistinguishable from a calf that may be a week old already.

There are now some 500 Rothschild Giraffes, four times as many as 30 years ago, when Jock and Betty Leslie- Melville started their crusade.

Although Betty died in September 2005, she woud have seen that the animals future is now reasonably secure with a Breeding programme now spread across 79 zoos all with many success stories every year.

Hope you enjoyed my pictures.. feel free to submit your own...

If you'd like to help Orana Widlife Park then click on the link right here..

http://www.oranawildlifepark.co.nz/how_you_can_help.htm

Awesome Thanks to

http://www.giraffemanor.com/
http://www.oranawildlifepark.co.nz/
http://www.gcci.org/afew/afew.html

and the Giraffes.

DMAN