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Southern Giraffe
Field guide
mammal · NA

Southern Giraffe

Giraffa giraffa

Add photoLog sighting
Overview

Tall browsers of the mopane and acacia belts.

Roughly 50,000 southern giraffes make it the most numerous giraffe left, and the ones striding across Etosha's plains belong to the Angolan subspecies, pale, cleanly patterned, and superbly at home in thornveld. Everything about a giraffe is an engineering dare: a five-meter animal running 50 kilometers an hour on legs like stilts, a half-meter prehensile tongue in bruise-purple (sunscreen, probably), and a heart the size of a bag of flour generating double human blood pressure to irrigate a brain two meters above it. They hum to each other at night, at frequencies only recently noticed, and a giraffe drinking, legs splayed, head swung down through six meters, is one of the most vulnerable and mesmerizing sights in the bush.

Behaviour

Loose, ever-shifting herds with no fixed leader. Bulls test rank by necking, slow-motion swinging duels that can turn genuinely violent.

Diet

Acacia specialists, stripping thorny branches with tongue and lips. A big adult can strip 30 kilograms of leaves in a day, mostly in the cool hours.

Photography

Giraffes against a low sun are the easiest great silhouette in Africa. For something rarer, wait at water: the splayed drinking posture lasts seconds and is worth the patience.

Ethics

Give drinking giraffes full space; they abandon the attempt when pressured, and in dry country that costs them.

Where you'll find them

Generalised encounter areas, not exact locations. Each shape is a grid cell coloured by how likely the species is there.

  • Namibia
    10 km zone · high confidence · 59 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 7 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 11 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 15 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 35 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 13 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 22 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 12 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 17 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 16 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 7 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 14 records · updated 1 day ago
    Very likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 13 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 13 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 12 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 12 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 7 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 8 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 8 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 7 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 6 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 6 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 6 records · updated 1 day ago
    Likely
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Possible
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Uncommon
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Rare
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Rare
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Rare
  • Namibia
    10 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
    Rare
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Very likelyNA
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