Hi! Would you like to see some giraffes?
 
 
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Here's a family with the old man darker in color as he ages.
 
Giraffes like to eat the tender new leaves........
..........but have no trouble wrapping their tongues around these big thorns and sliding the little leaves right off the acacias.
 
Giraffes have what we call horns but which are really bony projections covered by hair and having a black tuft of hair at the end. Males have thicker horns and the tufts are usually worn off from fighting. Females have thinner hair with the tufts more in tact. Here's a male from the back so you can see how thick and worn his horns are.
 
Then a pair of females--the one on the left is normal but the one on the right seems to have slightly deformed horns. We didn't see a lot of unusual animals like this.
 
Giraffes have many different skin patterns, usually depending on where they live. The southern giraffe has paler coloring and is found more in the areas above South Africa.  The Masai skin pattern is found in East Africa and the reticulated giraffe is found in the southern countries. But we saw some of all three. The giraffe in the first two picture of this letter is quite light like a southern. Here are three examples of other skin patterns that we encountered.  Reticulated on the left, Masai in the center, and a giraffe with both on the right.
 
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