JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The giraffe’s competitive advantage is its height, giving it a selection of leaves from the tallest trees, so scientists were horrified to find two dwarf giraffes on it. different aspects of Africa.
“It’s interesting what our researchers found out in the field,” Julian Fennessy, co-founder of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, told Reuters in a video conference on Friday. “It took us by surprise.”
Most giraffes grow to 15 – 20 feet (4.5 – 6 meters), but in 2018, scientists working with the base found an 8 1/2-foot giraffe ( 2.6 meters) in Namibia. Three years earlier, they had also found a 9-foot (2.8-meter) giraffe in Uganda’s wildlife park.
They published their findings in the British Medical Journal late last month.
In each case, the giraffes had the usual long stems but short, stumpy legs, the paper said. Skeletal dysplasia, the medical name for the condition, affects both humans and domestic animals, but the paper said it was rarely seen in wild animals.
Photographs taken by the foundation showed the Ugandan giraffe standing on thick, muscular legs in the dry savanna of Murchison Falls national park in northern Uganda, while a tall animal with long legs, resembling a stick , walking behind him.
“Unfortunately there may be no benefit in it at all. Giraffes have grown taller to reach the tallest trees, ”said Fennessy. He said it would be physically impossible for them to breed with their normal peers.
The world’s highest mammal numbers have declined by about 40% over the last 30 years to around 111,000, so all four species are classified by conservationists as ‘vulnerable’. ‘.
“It’s mainly due to habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, growing population, more land being cultivated,” said Fennessy. “With a bit of poaching, climate change”.
But conservation efforts have helped numbers recover in the past decade, he said.