Follow me.
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.