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Giraffe
Acacia woodland, open savannah and bushveld
Habitat
Year round
Best Viewing Season
Vulnerable
Conservation Status
Introduction
Giraffes stand as Earth's tallest land animals, reaching 5.5 metres to access acacia foliage no other herbivore can obtain. Across Tanzania's northern circuit, these iconic browsers graze with graceful precision on the open plains and woodland margins. Their extreme height and distinctive pattern make them unmistakable fixtures of every safari day.
Behaviour & Facts
A giraffe walks the way nothing else on Earth walks. Slow, exact, ridiculous, beautiful. The first time you see one feeding from the top of a forty foot acacia, the African landscape rearranges itself in your head. Take the time to watch a single animal for ten minutes and you will start to understand why they are stranger than they look. The giraffe is a triumph of strange engineering. Standing up to 5.5 metres tall, it is the tallest animal alive, a height it achieves not by having more neck bones than other mammals (it has the same seven as you) but by stretching every part of its body upward. Its heart is the size of a basketball, pumping blood up two metres of neck against gravity, and its blood pressure is double a human's. Every system has been redesigned to make the height work. For decades giraffes were assumed to be loose, unstructured herds. We now know they live in complex multi level societies. Small groups of related females form lasting friendships that can persist for years, nested inside larger communities of dozens of individuals. Females form lifelong bonds with grandmothers, mothers, sisters and daughters. When a female loses a calf to predation, other females in her group will stand near her at the body for hours, in what looks unmistakably like mourning.
Jack Fleckney - Legend Head Guide
Males have a separate and more brutal social life. Two bulls competing for dominance will engage in necking, slow ritualised combat in which they swing their heads like hammers against each other's flanks and necks. The skull is reinforced with bone deposits called ossicones, and a full strike from a 1,000 kilogram bull can knock the opponent unconscious. Most necking is not lethal, but the loser usually moves out of the area for good. A few facts travellers rarely know. Giraffes sleep only about thirty minutes in a 24 hour period, often standing up, in short bursts of a few minutes at a time. Their tongues are nearly half a metre long, prehensile, and dark blue or black to resist sunburn. Calves drop almost two metres to the ground at birth, a hard landing that helps break the umbilical cord and stimulate breathing. Tanzania holds the largest remaining Masai giraffe population in Africa. Numbers have fallen by roughly 50 percent over the past three decades due to habitat loss and poaching for bushmeat in unprotected areas, which is why the species was listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Inside Tanzania's national parks, however, the population is stable to growing, and Tarangire in particular is one of the best places left to see them living the way they always have.
Where to see
Giraffe
in Tanzania
Where to see giraffes in Tanzania?
Tarangire National Park has the highest density of giraffes in northern Tanzania and is the best single park for reliable high quality sightings. The Serengeti and Lake Manyara also hold strong populations. Legend Expeditions includes Tarangire on most of our northern circuit itineraries for the consistency of giraffe and elephant viewing there.
How tall is a fully grown giraffe?
Adult male giraffes in Tanzania stand up to 5.5 metres tall and can weigh more than 1,200 kilograms. Females are slightly smaller. They are by a clear margin the tallest land animals on Earth and easily double the height of a fully grown elephant.
Why are giraffes Vulnerable?
Inside well protected parks populations are stable or growing, so they appear common to safari visitors. Across the rest of Africa, however, giraffe numbers have fallen sharply in three decades due to habitat loss and bushmeat poaching outside protected areas. The Masai subspecies found in Tanzania is among the most affected.
Do giraffes really sleep standing up?
Yes, and only for short bursts totalling roughly 30 minutes in a 24 hour period. They take brief moments of deeper sleep lying down with the head tucked across the back. This is the lowest sleep requirement of any mammal. The reason is predator pressure: getting up takes several precious seconds they cannot afford.
Are giraffes dangerous to humans?
Giraffes are not aggressive toward people or vehicles, but they can defend themselves with kicks powerful enough to kill a lion. The forelegs deliver a downward chop strong enough to break bone. The risk to you on safari is zero, because they never approach vehicles. You simply watch them from a respectful distance.
How long do giraffes live?
Wild giraffes in Tanzania typically live 20 to 25 years, with some individuals reaching the early thirties. In captivity they can live longer. Females tend to outlive males because males spend their prime years in dangerous necking combat and territorial disputes.
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