Hi I'm Danny! I'm travelling around the world! Follow me.

I'm staying in one of the many wildlife conservancies that border the Maasai Mara national reserve in Kenya. For the next couple weeks I'm going to try and post each evening from The Naboisho Conservancy.

Giraffe

On todays game drive we saw some giraffes from our vehicle. They are a little skittish so we couldn't get too close without them stopping what they were doing to stare at us. The giraffe calves stayed really close to the mother and she appeared to be quite protective. The male giraffes are also territorial and will fight to keep and win over the female giraffes.

Giraffes have the same amount of bones in their necks as human and they also have a special valve in their head which no other animals have. Being so tall they need a valve to regulate the pressure of their blood to stop their head exploding when they lower/raise their neck to drink water.

The channel 4 series Inside Natures Giants had an episode about Giraffes. In the episode Richard Dawkins showed that the giraffe is at the absolute brink of evolution. They used to have small necks and feed on small bushes - evolution has transformed them into what they are today. You can watch the clip here.