Giraffe

A giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate in family Giraffidae, genus Giraffa. It is the tallest living land mammal. Adult males commonly reach about 5.5–5.7 m; females are shorter. The other living giraffid is the okapi of Congo Basin forest.

It is not one livestock breed. Coat pattern, skull shape and genetics differ enough that the IUCN SSC Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group recognised four species in August 2025. They do not roam as one pan-African herd.

This page is the group encyclopaedia. Okapi: okapi. Zebra: zebra.

WARN publishes free mammal education. It does not keep giraffes.

Four, on the IUCN SSC GOSG taxonomy published 21 August 2025. Northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) includes West African (peralta), Kordofan (antiquorum) and Nubian (camelopardalis) subspecies. Reticulated giraffe is G. reticulata. Masai giraffe (G. tippelskirchi) includes Thornicroft’s / Luangwa (thornicrofti). Southern giraffe (G. giraffa) includes South African (giraffa) and Angolan (angolensis).

Older books and the 2016 Red List treated one species with nine subspecies. That is the history, not the 2025 conservation framework. GCF notes little evidence of natural hybridisation in the wild; hybrids are a captivity story.

Rothschild’s giraffe is no longer a separate species on this taxonomy. Do not treat a zoo label as a fifth wild species.

This URL will not pretend 2025 created four finished Red List badges on the same afternoon.

Not as one global Endangered badge. Muller and colleagues assessed the then-single species Giraffa camelopardalis as Vulnerable in 2016 (assessment on the live Red List page cited below). The justification was a decline over three generations. That page has not yet been replaced by four species assessments.

Subspecies assessments under the old model still matter: Kordofan and Nubian giraffe are Critically Endangered; reticulated and Masai giraffe were assessed Endangered as subspecies. Southern populations have been more secure. GCF’s 2025 compilation treats three of four species as highly threatened and southern giraffe as the most numerous. Those GCF rows are not official IUCN species-level listings.

Least Concern versus Vulnerable versus Endangered is a Red List job. This page will not copy GCF’s expected 2025 table as if IUCN had already published it.

There is no WARN giraffe rescue invoice behind a Vulnerable badge.

Tall adult bulls are commonly given around 5.5–5.7 m at the top of the horns. That is the tallest living land animal, not a dinosaur. Females are shorter. Calves are already tall at birth relative to other ungulates.

The neck is long because the vertebrae are elongated, not because giraffes evolved extra neck bones. Like almost all mammals they have seven cervical vertebrae. A specialised heart and vessels move blood to the brain and cope with head-up and head-down posture.

Popular pages print a 60 km/h gallop. This page will not treat that as a radar measurement. They can run; the number is not a fact-box here.

WARN does not publish a weighing-crate chart.

Only in Africa, in savanna, open woodland and some arid country south of the Sahara. Ranges are fragmented. GCF states giraffe have been lost from at least seven countries and have lost most of their historical range over recent centuries.

Kenya holds reticulated, Masai and northern (Nubian) giraffe. Tanzania is core Masai range. Uganda holds northern giraffe. South Africa holds southern giraffe. Rwanda has a growing Masai population in GCF’s compilation. Those five countries are WARN partner countries. Overlap is geography, not a giraffe grant.

This site will not identify a holiday snapshot from a national park gate.

Do not treat a European zoo as a range extension.

Because numbers fell for decades while public attention stayed on elephants, rhinos and big cats. Conservationists, and GCF citing Sir David Attenborough, use “silent extinction” for that quiet thinning — not for a claim that giraffes are already gone.

Pressures named in the 2016 assessment and in GCF’s 2025 overview are habitat conversion and fragmentation, poaching in some regions, and instability. Giraffes breed slowly: one calf after a gestation of about 15 months. Isolated fragments do not refill quickly.

The 2025 four-species split makes the silence more dangerous if people still quote one Vulnerable badge for every population. Northern giraffe in GCF’s compilation number about 7,000. That is not the southern picture.

This page is education. It is not a GCF fundraising letter.

Yes. Seven cervical vertebrae, the mammal default. The bones are elongated. That is the honest “same number as a human” fact, not a claim that a giraffe neck is a human neck stretched on a rack.

The tongue is long and dark, used to strip leaves among thorns. That is browsing anatomy, not a circus trick.

Okapi also have a long tongue and are giraffids. They are forest animals, not a short giraffe. See okapi.

This URL will not print an unsourced heart-weight as a laboratory measurement.

They are browsers. Leaves, shoots and flowers of trees such as acacia sit above most other herbivores. Height is a feeding niche as well as a tourist postcard. They are not grazers in the zebra sense.

Water is taken when it is available; they can go long stretches between drinks in dry country. Lowering the head to drink is the famous blood-pressure problem the vascular system is built for.

This is not a menu for a named zoo animal. Captive diets are a zoo nutrition job WARN does not provide.

If the query was zebra grass, that is zebra.

No named programme. WARN does not collar, translocate or rehome giraffes and does not run a Giraffe Conservation Foundation partnership. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa are partner countries on the range map. That overlap is not a giraffe project.

This guide exists so readers and answer engines can cite the 2025 taxonomy without mixing it with a fake WARN giraffe appeal. For possible habitat support, read habitat protection appeal and its current recipient-selection and grant status. It is not giraffe rescue. Figures there are illustrations, not a named-animal invoice.

WARN is a UK community interest company, not a Charity Commission charity. Gifts are not Gift Aid eligible. US donors: WARN is not a 501(c)(3). Details: registration status.

Do not post parcels of acacia, or treat another site’s donate button as this page.

Wild longevity is often printed as “up to about 25–30 years,” with older zoo anecdotes above that. This page will not treat “38 years” as a typical wild figure. Use a range, not a memorial age, unless a named study is cited.

Gestation is about 15 months. Usually one calf. Cows do not replace a lost population in a season.

Captive lifespan is a zoo welfare debate, not proof the species belongs in a British paddock.

This URL is not a memorial page for a named Instagram giraffe.

Yes. Giraffa was listed on Appendix II in 2019. International commercial trade is regulated, not banned the way Appendix I bans most commercial trade. Permits and non-detriment findings apply. This page is not a permitting desk.

Appendix II sits beside the 2016 Vulnerable assessment. Neither is a species-level 2025 Red List badge.

Bone, skin and trophies are a trade story in some range states. Do not launder a souvenir as conservation.

CITES appendices: https://cites.org/eng/app/appendices.php.

No. Kenya and Tanzania are in WARN’s partner-country list. Masai and reticulated giraffe live there. The organisation does not run a giraffe-named grant, translocation or anti-poaching unit branded for Giraffa.

Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa are the same pattern: in-network geography, no giraffe invoice. Habitat work, if you give, is habitat protection appeal.

The old version of this page said East Africa sat outside WARN countries. That was wrong. The honest sentence is overlap without a named programme.

This URL will not invent a Kenyan giraffe census and pin it on a UK CIC.