Foot shape and radiographs of free-ranging Nubian giraffe in Uganda

A giraffe’s sole is not a flat platform. Beneath the foot, a curved underside leaves the middle recessed while the outer edges meet a flat surface. That shape matters when veterinarians try to understand painful feet in zoos: without a clear picture of wild feet, it is difficult to know what normal should look like.

Liza Dadone, Steve Foxworth and colleagues examined 27 young, apparently healthy Nubian giraffes during a conservation move in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park. They photographed feet, X-rayed 86 feet from 24 animals, and pressed a painted board against the soles of seven giraffes. Paint marked the places that made contact. The animals were lying down during these examinations, so the board test did not measure pressures under a standing giraffe.

The soles were concave, with contact concentrated around the hoof walls and heels. X-rays revealed few abnormalities and none of the joint arthritis or foot fractures described in some previous zoo studies. Those comparisons were not age-matched, so they cannot establish that captivity caused the difference. Instead, the study supplies something more practical: an anatomical reference showing that a healthy-looking wild giraffe foot need not have a flat underside.