Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) — the world’s tallest land mammal

Giraffa camelopardalis is the tallest mammal on Earth, with adult bulls reaching 5.7 m from the ground to the tips of their ossicones and weighing up to 1,930 kg. The species ranges across sub-Saharan Africa, from Niger in the west to Somalia in the east and south to South Africa, living in savannas, open woodlands, and grasslands wherever acacia growth is dense. Long treated as a single species with several subspecies, genome-level analyses reported in August 2025 established that what was once called “the giraffe” is in fact four distinct species, with genetic divergences as large as those separating polar bears from brown bears. The combined wild population of all four species stood at approximately 140,000 individuals as of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation’s State of Giraffe 2025 report.

Key facts

  • Scientific name: Giraffa camelopardalis
  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Chordata
  • Class: Mammalia
  • Order: Artiodactyla
  • Family: Giraffidae
  • Genus: Giraffa
  • Taxonomic rank: species

Physical characteristics

Male bulls reach 5.7 m in total height, with shoulder height measuring 3.3 m and the neck adding a further 2.4 m above that. Female cows are considerably lighter, reaching up to 1,180 kg against the bull’s 1,930 kg. The neck’s extraordinary length does not come from extra vertebrae: giraffes possess the same seven cervical vertebrae as humans, but each one can exceed 25 cm in length.

On top of the skull sit ossicones, protuberances of ossified cartilage covered in skin and fur. Male ossicones grow up to 25 cm long and become bald at their tips from repeated sparring impacts over a lifetime. Female ossicones remain tufted throughout life. Both sexes carry a coat pattern that is unique to each individual and does not change over its lifetime; field researchers use these patterns to identify individuals in the same way forensic teams use human fingerprints.

The tongue is approximately 45 cm long and dark blue-black in colour. Its prehensile structure lets the animal manoeuvre around acacia thorns to strip leaves directly from the branch. Acacia leaves are also the giraffe’s primary water source, supplying enough moisture that individuals can go long periods without drinking directly; when they do drink, they can take in up to 38 litres in a single day.

Lowering the head to drink creates a cardiovascular problem that height makes severe. A specialised network of small blood vessels at the base of the brain, called the rete mirabile, acts as a pressure buffer, preventing a dangerous surge of blood to the brain each time the animal bends down to a water source.

Feeding and digestion

Giraffes are ruminants with a four-chambered stomach. After swallowing acacia leaves, a ball of partially digested material travels back up the oesophagus to the mouth for a second round of grinding as cud before passing on through the digestive system. This cycle allows the animal to extract maximum nutrition from vegetation that is sparse in protein relative to its bulk.

Behaviour and social structure

Giraffes live in what are sometimes called towers, but the term overstates the cohesion: membership in a group changes from day to day in a fission-fusion arrangement, meaning an individual may associate with entirely different companions on consecutive days. No permanent herd structure exists.

Males compete for mating access through necking, a behaviour in which two bulls swing their long necks and strike each other with their ossicone-bearing heads. Repeated impacts over years are what produce the bald ossicone tips seen on mature bulls. Females reach sexual maturity at 3 to 4 years of age; males typically do not breed successfully until 6 to 7 years old. Breeding is not seasonal and can occur throughout the year.

Sleep in giraffes is fragmented to a degree unusual among large mammals. Wild individuals sleep between 30 minutes and 2 hours per day in short naps, often taken while standing to allow rapid escape from predators. A field study using neck-mounted accelerometers on free-ranging giraffes in Tanzania found that recumbent sleep averaged just 8.6 minutes per night.

Reproduction and lifespan

Newborn calves weigh approximately 100 kg and stand between 1.5 and 1.8 m at the shoulder at birth. Within 20 minutes of birth they can stand, and suckling follows shortly after. In the first year of life, a calf roughly doubles its size.

In the wild, giraffes typically live 10 to 15 years, with a recorded maximum of 25 years. Captive individuals live longer, commonly reaching 20 to 27 years; one captive individual reached 39 years, the longest recorded lifespan for the species.

Taxonomy and the four-species question

For most of the history of formal zoology, all giraffes were classified as a single species, Giraffa camelopardalis, with variation across populations attributed to subspecies. In August 2025, the IUCN’s Giraffe and Okapi Specialist Group formally recognised four distinct species based on continent-wide genomic analyses: the Northern giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), the Reticulated giraffe, the Masai giraffe, and the Southern giraffe. The genetic distances separating these four lineages are comparable to those between polar bears and brown bears, making the prior single-species classification an underestimate of the group’s actual diversity.

The reclassification carries conservation implications. The Northern giraffe, now counted as its own species, had a wild population of 7,037 individuals as of the State of Giraffe 2025 report, placing it among the most threatened large mammals on Earth.

Conservation status and threats

The Giraffe Conservation Foundation’s State of Giraffe 2025 report estimated the combined wild population of all four species at approximately 140,000 individuals. Habitat loss driven by human population expansion, alongside poaching, is the primary cause of decline. Giraffes have disappeared from roughly 90% of the regions once considered prime habitat, and several West African countries where they formerly occurred now have no resident population.

Trade in giraffes and their parts, including bones, hides, and meat, was unregulated in international law until August 22, 2019, when the 18th Conference of the Parties to CITES in Geneva voted 106 to 21 to place giraffes on Appendix II for the first time. The listing requires that international trade be monitored and regulated.

Rare individuals carry a condition called leucism, a partial loss of pigmentation distinct from true albinism. Leucistic giraffes have pale coats but retain dark eyes and some pigment in the tail. The absence of the species’ characteristic patterning may leave leucistic individuals at a disadvantage for camouflage and social signalling, though the population-level impact of the condition remains unstudied.

History with humans

The human relationship with giraffes stretches back at least to 2500 BC, when individuals were transported from sub-Saharan Africa to Egypt by raft along the Nile and presented as diplomatic gifts between rulers. This practice of using giraffes as political currency persisted across thousands of years of African and Near Eastern history.

The first giraffe recorded in Europe arrived in Rome in 46 BC, brought by Julius Caesar from Alexandria and displayed during his triumphal processions. Romans who encountered it had no existing framework for the animal and named it camelopardalis, concluding it must be a hybrid of camel and leopard. That name, however wrong in biology, survives intact in the species’ scientific name Giraffa camelopardalis, more than two millennia later.

Did you know

  • Despite being the world’s tallest land animal, wild giraffes sleep only about 30 minutes to 2 hours per day, often in naps of just 5 minutes, making them among the most sleep-deprived mammals on Earth. A field study using accelerometers on free-ranging giraffes in Tanzania found that recumbent sleep averaged just 8.6 minutes per night. (biologyinsights.com)
  • Giraffes share the same number of neck vertebrae as humans — seven — but each giraffe cervical vertebra can be over 25 cm (10 inches) long, which is how a neck that looks nothing like a human’s reaches 2.4 m in length. (newworldencyclopedia.org)
  • A 2025 continent-wide genomic study found that the genetic differences between the four giraffe species are as significant as those between brown bears and polar bears — extraordinary for animals that had been classified as a single species for over 250 years. (abcnews.com)
  • Rare white giraffes exist because of leucism, a partial loss of pigmentation, not true albinism. Leucistic individuals retain dark eyes and some pigment in the tail but lack the species’ characteristic coat patterning, a difference that may put them at a disadvantage for camouflage and mating. (anneinnisdaggfoundation.org)
  • At birth, a giraffe calf already stands approximately 1.8 m tall at the shoulder and doubles its size in the first year of life, meaning a newborn giraffe is already taller than most adult humans. (marwell.org.uk)
  • In 2500 BC, several giraffes were captured in sub-Saharan Africa and transported to Egypt by raft along the Nile River, where they served as prestigious diplomatic gifts between rulers. This practice of giraffe diplomacy continued for thousands of years. (giraffeworlds.com)

Data sources

Data updated: 2026-10-27