General Information

Encyclopedias | Giraffe Facts and FAQs | General Information | Foreign Language

Encyclopedias

Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a generally excellent "open-source" encyclopedia, nicely hyperlinked. This entry explains the circulatory system rather well. See their page on the okapi.

Columbia Encyclopedia description of the giraffe (from Fact Monster), also here and here.

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica with lots of scanning errors.

FreeDictionary.com and Encarta. Just say no.

Giraffe Facts and FAQs

RandomGiraffeFacts.com gives you—surprise—random giraffe facts! One at a time, I find this a strangely entrancing website. Somehow, the facts sink in better when they're dribbled out like this.

National Geographic, Creature Feature. A nifty scroll goes through interesting giraffe facts (eg., "A giraffe's tongue can be up to 21 inches long."). The narrative recounts a lion-giraffe duel.

"Corwin's Carnival of Creatures" (Animal Planet). Fact laundry-list, with a cute photo of two giraffes.

General Information

Excellent information can also be found at Zoo Fact Sheets.

The Animal Diversity Web giraffe page, a wonderful resource from the University of Michigan, gives general description with academic heft. Includes information about habits, conservation and current status etc.

General information with some rare gems: full giraffe taxonomy and a distribution map. Images taken at the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, and a lengthy, academic giraffe bibliography. Courtesy the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's "Antelope Taxon Advisory Group." They oughta know.

Brief text on the giraffe from the African Southern Cross Safari.There is a nice photograph of the giraffe skull, and an invitation to compare it with an Okapi skull. Photographs by Neil Shedden.

Facts and information from the Friends of the Smithsonian National Zoo. The information here is neatly categorized into physical description, size, geographic distribution, diet, etc.

Giraffa camelopardalis, from Spook Skelton, a nature photographer. Good page, with information on where giraffes live, places to see them, social and mating system, motion, communiation, etc. Skelton's photographs ("Towering," "At waters edge," "Browsing," "Blending," "Walking.") are also good.

The Big Zoo page provides a lot of information about the various facets of the giraffe like senses of the giraffe, birth and offspring, habitat, food and behavior or this fine mammal. Includes videos of Walking (514 KB), Close-up of face (377 KB), Close-up of tongue (420 KB).

African Wildlife Foundation, giraffe page. Includes information on characteristics, descriptions, habits and, of course, conservation.

Safaricam has brief categorized information like habits, breeding, a distribution map etc. Rare find: photo of giraffe dung. See also his South African Mammals.

Article by Jeanne Daigle, BellaOnline's African Culture Host with various facts about giraffes.

Southern Giraffe page and fact sheet with facts nicely keyed to a pictures taken at the Etosha National Park and other places, by Marko Laakkonen.

Great article on the giraffe from "On the Matrix" , a travel site, by Bruce G Stumpf, with a lot of pictures. The photos have very entertaining captions too.

A Guide to the Giraffe, Giraffa camelopardalis from Eco Travel. Includes info on how the arteries supply blood up a giraffe's neck.

General information about the Giraffa camelopardalis by David Ireland, African Wildlife Foundation and the National Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife. There is a photo of a giraffe taken in the wild taken by Dr. Ellen K Rudolph.

Born to be wild — Giraffes on the move. Article by Joanna Lumley, Actress and Born Free Foundation Trustee. Joanna describes the giraffes as "sea monsters." Read to find out why.

Lion Country Safari information page on the giraffe like physical description, diet etc. There three nice images too.

Janet LaFara's Giraffe Haven is a messy, ad-heavy, but surprisingly large compendium of giraffe resources. Includes photos, drawings, backgrounds, links. Much of the art appears to have been lifted from other sites, © marks disregarded.

PBS page for its program "The Living Edens" contains a couple of paragraphs of generic information, including how much a baby giraffe weighs.

South Africa venues page with basic info and a few good pictures at the bottom.

Minor information and major links from www.giraffes-giraffes.com (what?-what?). The link list is truly impresive, but has been surpassed...

The Animal Magazine descriptions of the giraffe, with a photo that you can send as a postcard.

Safari Park page on the giraffe.

Wild Life Africa, very brief page on the behavior of giraffes.

An article by The oldcrab titled "Homo sapien [sic] or Giraffa camelopardalis?" What it is, how it moves, and good places to see it. From "The Liberal Soundbag." Hmm...

Brief fact sheet with two images from WildlifeLands Image Archive. (The images aren't very large.)

Fossil Rim Wildlife center, Glen Rose, TX. Brief information with one picture. Irritating correction to this and many other pages: The term Campelopardalis was not named by an "early explorer." The word is Latin, taken directly from ancient Greek, in which it is first used in surviving literature by Agatharchides of Cnidus. The origin per se is not known.

Giraffe FactFile from choices wild has a lot of information available by clicking the links provided.

Nature Canada page about the giraffe. There is a brief description about the animal with a drawing.

Buddy com giraffe page on species conservation, diving quickly into simplistic zero-growth rhetoric, eg., not one but two population charts starting thousands of years ago. Granted, there weren't that many humans when we relied on subsistence agriculture. Is this proof of anything?

Masai giraffe. Photo and general description.

Six links to giraffe sites and one good picture. Most of the links don't work though.

Brief information page on the giraffe from the South African Game Ranchers' Organisation.

Foreign Language

German site by Matthias Zimmermann with general information and some good photographs.

Lots of photographs of giraffes in various postures by Hans Henning Klein. The text is in German though.

Bilingual English / Dutch giraffe fact sheet from animals-online.be. (I guess the ".be" means it's Flemish.)