Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis): Facts, Height and Diet

What does a giraffe look like?

A giraffe is built like no other animal: very long legs, a neck that can be about 2.4 m (8 ft) long, and a short, sloping body that drops from high shoulders to a lower rump. The coat is covered in brown, orange, chestnut or almost black patches separated by pale cream lines. Every giraffe’s pattern is unique, a bit like a fingerprint, and older males often turn darker.

On top of the head sit two horn-like knobs called ossicones, and many giraffes also have a bony lump in the middle of the forehead. The ossicones are made of bone that grows from cartilage and stays covered in skin and hair. Females and young giraffes have thin ossicones with tufts of hair on top, while adult males wear theirs bald and knobby from fighting. Males also build up extra bone on the skull with age, which makes their heads heavier.

The tongue is dark blue-black and about 45–50 cm (18–20 in) long. The tail ends in a long tuft of black hair that swats away flies.

How big is a giraffe?

Giraffes are the tallest animals alive and the largest ruminants (cud-chewing mammals). Males are clearly bigger than females.

Despite the long neck, a giraffe has only seven neck vertebrae, the same as a human. Each bone is simply stretched, reaching over 28 cm (11 in) in big adults. For more detail on heights and records, see How tall is a giraffe?

How does a giraffe’s body work at that height?

Pumping blood up a neck 2 m long is hard work. A giraffe’s heart weighs about 11 kg (25 lb) and has walls up to 7.5 cm (3 in) thick, and its blood pressure is roughly twice as high as a human’s. When the giraffe lowers its head to drink, a network of small blood vessels near the brain and valves in the neck veins stop blood from rushing to the head. Tight, thick skin on the lower legs works like a compression stocking, keeping blood from pooling in the feet.

Giraffes move with only two gaits: a walk, in which both legs on one side swing forward together, and a gallop. A galloping giraffe can reach about 60 km/h (37 mph) in short bursts and hold about 50 km/h (31 mph) for several kilometers.

Where do giraffes live?

Giraffes live only in Africa, in scattered populations south of the Sahara. Their range stretches from Niger and Chad in the west and north to South Africa in the south, and from Namibia and Angola in the west to Somalia in the east. They have disappeared from many countries where they once lived, including Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea and Eritrea.

Their favorite habitat is savanna and open woodland with plenty of acacia, Commiphora and Combretum trees. In northwestern Namibia, Angolan giraffes even live on the edge of the desert. Giraffes are not territorial. Home ranges vary from about 5 to more than 600 square kilometers (2 to over 230 square miles), depending on rainfall and food.

What do giraffes eat?

Giraffes are herbivores that browse on the leaves, shoots, flowers and fruit of trees and shrubs, especially acacias. An adult eats about 34 kg (75 lb) of plant matter a day. Its long, flexible tongue and tough, hairy lips let it strip leaves from between sharp thorns. Because it feeds high up, often 2–4.5 m (6.5–15 ft) above the ground, a giraffe faces little competition from antelopes, which browse lower down.

Like cows, giraffes are ruminants with a four-chambered stomach. They swallow food, bring it back up as cud and chew it again, and you can see the lump of cud traveling up the neck. Giraffes get much of their water from leaves, but drink when water is available, spreading their front legs wide or bending their knees to reach the ground. They are also known to chew old bones, probably for minerals. Read more in What do giraffes eat?

How do giraffes behave?

Giraffes are social but in a loose way. Groups of usually a few to about 20 animals, and occasionally more than 60, form and split up over hours or days, a system called fission–fusion. Long-term studies show that females have preferred companions, often relatives, that they meet again and again. Adult males are more solitary and roam between female groups looking for mates.

Males settle who is dominant by necking. In gentle bouts, two bulls lean and rub their necks together. In serious fights, they swing their heavy heads like hammers and strike with their ossicones. Most fights end without injury, but broken jaws and even deaths have been recorded.

Giraffes are not silent. They snort when alarmed and make grunts, hisses and coughs, and zoo recordings show they hum at night. They sleep remarkably little, only around 4–5 hours a day in zoos, in short naps. Read more in How do giraffes sleep?

Reproduction and calves

Giraffes can breed at any time of year. Pregnancy lasts about 15 months (400–460 days), and the mother gives birth standing up, so the calf drops about 1.5–2 m (5–6.5 ft) to the ground. A single calf is the rule; twins are rare. Within an hour or so the calf is standing and suckling.

For its first weeks the calf spends much of its time lying hidden while its mother feeds nearby. Later, calves gather in nursery groups, sometimes watched by one female while the others feed. Calves start chewing the cud at four to six months, are weaned at about one year and may stay with their mothers until about 14 months. Females can first give birth at about 4–5 years old, while males rarely get to mate before about seven.

How long do giraffes live, and what eats them?

Wild giraffes usually live 10–15 years, but adults that survive the dangerous first year can live much longer, and some wild females have been recorded living well over 25 years. In zoos, 20–27 years is typical.

Adult giraffes have few enemies. Their size, sharp eyesight and powerful kicks, which have been known to kill lions, keep most predators away, and lions are the only regular hunters of adults. Calves are much more at risk and are also taken by leopards, spotted hyenas and African wild dogs. Only about a quarter to half of all calves reach adulthood.

How many giraffe species are there?

For more than 250 years, all giraffes were treated as one species, Giraffa camelopardalis, with up to nine subspecies told apart by their coat patterns and ranges. Genetic studies from 2016 onward found that giraffes form four groups that have been separated for a long time. In 2025 the IUCN’s Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group accepted four species:

• Northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), with Kordofan, Nubian and West African subspecies
• Reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata), with large, neat, liver-red patches
• Masai giraffe (Giraffa tippelskirchi), with jagged, leaf-like blotches
• Southern giraffe (Giraffa giraffa), with Angolan and South African subspecies

The giraffe’s closest living relative is the okapi, a shy forest animal of central Africa. Read more in How many giraffe species are there?

Are giraffes endangered?

The IUCN Red List moved the giraffe from Least Concern to Vulnerable in 2016, after estimating that numbers had fallen by 36–40% in 30 years, from around 150,000–160,000 in 1985 to about 97,500 in 2015. Conservationists called this a “silent extinction” because it went largely unnoticed. Some populations are in much worse shape than others: the Kordofan and Nubian giraffes were listed as Critically Endangered in 2018, and the reticulated and Masai giraffes as Endangered.

The main threats are habitat loss to farms and settlements, poaching for meat, and civil unrest. More recent and more thorough surveys counted about 140,000 giraffes in 2025, with numbers rising in parts of southern Africa and in protected areas of East Africa, while the northern giraffe numbers only about 7,000 animals. Giraffes have been listed under CITES Appendix II since 2019, which regulates international trade in their parts.

Giraffes and people

Giraffes have fascinated people for thousands of years. Rock engravings of giraffes in Niger are about 8,000 years old, and ancient Egyptians had a hieroglyph for the animal. Julius Caesar brought the first giraffe to Rome in 46 BC, a giraffe sent to Lorenzo de’ Medici caused a sensation in Florence in 1486, and “Zarafa” became a celebrity in Paris in the 1820s.

The old English name “camelopard” comes from the Greek for camel and leopard, and lives on in the species name camelopardalis and in a northern constellation. Today giraffes are one of the main draws of African safaris and the national animal of Tanzania. Ecotourism helps pay for their protection, and in several countries giraffes have been moved to safe reserves to restart lost populations.