Scientific commentary
Giraffes With Lion Experience Stay Alert to Roars Longer
Looking toward a roar and deciding how long to keep watching turn out to be different parts of recognising danger.
Giraffe research, explained.Page 4
The questions, fieldwork and discoveries behind giraffe science. Each story explains an original study, what it found and what remains uncertain.
Research stories
28–36 of 179 stories
Scientific commentary
Why Giraffe Mothers Let Other Calves Suckle
A calf seeking another mother’s milk and a mother tolerating it can be following different sides of the same interaction.
Scientific commentary
Can a Giraffe’s History Leave a Lasting Stress Signal?
Researchers tested a way to look beyond a single stress hormone, using stored samples and the animals’ medical histories.
Scientific commentary
Adolescent Giraffes Repeatedly Chose Same-Sex Peers
Two populations showed the same core pattern: adolescent giraffes most often associated with peers of their own sex, without simply collecting more companions.
Scientific commentary
A Four-Ossicone Giraffid Rewrites a Fossil Family Branch
Well-preserved skulls and an unusually complete skeleton placed a Spanish giraffid within a much wider evolutionary comparison.
Scientific commentary
Pakistan Fossils Reveal Giraffe Anatomy Nine Million Years Ago
Separate fossils preserved different parts of early Giraffa anatomy, allowing comparisons that tooth-only species could not provide.
Scientific commentary
Different Diets Left Different Microbial Communities in Giraffes
The microbes that help digest leaves varied between feeding groups, but a first survey could not yet say how those differences changed digestion.
Scientific commentary
DNA Narrows the Search for Giraffe Skin Disease’s Cause
Tiny worms inside skin lesions offered a clue. Comparing their DNA with known parasites helped researchers ask a more precise question.
Scientific commentary
Arusha’s Giraffe Census Revealed a Forty-Year Loss
A return to a census last conducted in 1979–1980 found roughly half as many giraffes, with the sharpest loss in the park’s southern population.