Activity budget and foraging patterns of Nubian giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis) in Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya

These giraffes ate a plant considered poisonous to livestock. Sodom apple, a shrub often treated as an unwelcome invader, appeared repeatedly in the diet of Nubian giraffes at Kenya’s Lake Nakuru National Park. That unexpected food choice was part of a closer look at how giraffes use a fenced landscape as seasons change.

Consolata Gitau, Judith Mbau and colleagues observed adult giraffes on twelve survey days in 2019, divided between dry and wet seasons. At regular intervals they recorded each animal’s activity and identified the plant it was eating. This produced 11,280 activity records, including more than 6,000 feeding observations, allowing comparisons between seasons, sexes and habitats.

Fever trees supplied about two-thirds of feeding records, with Sodom apple contributing around 9%. Another shrub, Maytenus senegalensis, rose from 12% of dry-season feeding records to 23% in the wet season. Yet overall time spent feeding, resting and moving did not differ significantly between seasons. The study did not test plant toxicity or nutritional benefits in giraffes. What it revealed was a selective, locally varied menu: even an unwelcome shrub can be food, and a changing diet need not mean a radically different daily routine.