Sterling’s Blog

Giraffes are one of my favorite animals.  In my opinion, they are one of the most beautiful and interesting animals in Africa.  We have seen them in Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, and Tanzania.

Giraffes are HUGE!  A baby is as tall as a grown man!  6 feet tall!  They live on average 28 years.  Even though Giraffe necks are so long, they only have seven vertebra (the same as humans) but each Giraffe vertebra is much longer than a human vertebra.  The reason Giraffes have such long necks is so the can reach higher branches and avoid competition for food with almost every other animal other than elephants.  Giraffe legs are so long that the only way that they can drink is to sprawl out their legs. 

A Giraffe’s enemies are Spotted Hyaena, Cheetah, Lion, and Leopard.  When a Giraffe sees a predator he or she will grunt or snort.  Then the Giraffe will run away at up to 55 km. per hour.   If the predator is too close and there is not time for the giraffe to run it will give a kick which could kill a lion.  Since giraffes have very good vision and hearing, they do not often get put in that situation.

Unlike most animals, Giraffes are born with horns but the horns are squishy and soft and made of cartilege.  They are called floating horns.  Later Giraffe horns become hard bone attached to their skull.  Giraffes rub necks when sparring and when a pair is together.  Two fighting male Giraffes could break each other’s necks, bones, horns or even kill each other, but those events are very unlikely.

We went to a Reptile Park in South Africa.  We got to feed terrapins (turtles), black mambas (snakes), and Giant Plated Lizards.  The terrapins and Giant Plated Lizard ate hibiscus flowers and the mambas ate mice.  When the Giant Plated Lizards climbed on to our hands to eat the flower we could lift them up until they were done with their snack.  When they were done they would jump on to the rock.

They had some chameleons and Bearded Dragons that had been mistreated by their previous owners who had dumped them at the park.  A Bearded Dragon had been put underneath a bad heating system and had been badly burnt.  He had to have his tail and 2 legs cut off.  A chameleon had been fed wrong and was weak and small instead of being strong and bright and colorful.  The park was trying to help them but unfortunately the damage was permanent. 

Almost every day the park gets called by people to take away snakes and even lizards from their property.  Some of the cultural beliefs think chameleons and geckos are bad.  Once they collect the reptile from the house they do scientific research on it and see if it is sick or not.  If it is sick, they will take care of it until it’s better.

At the end of our tour our guide let us hold a big Burmese Python.  Most people think snakes are slimy but it is the exact opposite.  The Python felt smooth and soft.  The reason people think snakes are slimy is because the reflection off their scales make them look like they are wet and slimy, but it’s just reflected light.

It was very exciting at the Reptile Park and I wish I could go there again.