Scientific commentary
How Giraffes Respond to the People Who Care for Them
A giraffe can approach a keeper eagerly or cautiously. A small study tested whether people could consistently recognise that difference.
Giraffe research, explained.Page 7
The questions, fieldwork and discoveries behind giraffe science. Each story explains an original study, what it found and what remains uncertain.
Research stories
55–63 of 179 stories
Scientific commentary
Two Giraffes Kept Feeding During a Zoo Light Event
The quiet result makes more sense when the giraffe house, the hay delivery and the observation window stay in the story.
Scientific commentary
Giraffes Walked Farther When Researchers Followed Them
A year of tracking exposed the observer effect in giraffe fieldwork: movement changed with human presence, and different responses faded at different rates.
Scientific commentary
Young Giraffes Can Change Communities Without Moving Far
Following identities as well as locations revealed a form of dispersal that a movement map alone would miss.
Scientific commentary
What Scent Tests Revealed About Individual Giraffes
A two-stage zoo experiment explored whether smells could offer useful variety—and why an interesting scent is not automatically a proven welfare improvement.
Scientific commentary
Standing Close Did Not Reveal Every Giraffe Social Bond
Putting enclosure maps beside records of nuzzling, grooming and rubbing revealed agreement for some pairs and a mismatch for others.
Scientific commentary
Giraffe Gene Changes Protected Mice From Hypertension
A DNA comparison became an experiment when researchers placed seven giraffe-specific changes into the corresponding mouse gene.
Scientific commentary
Rebuilding Sivatherium Revealed a Giant With a Smaller Mass
A massive-looking limb bone and a reconstructed whole body gave very different weight estimates for this extinct giraffid.
Scientific commentary
What giraffe milk reveals as nursing comes to an end
Milk chemistry offers a window onto the end of lactation, but interpreting that window requires distinguishing molecules in milk from processes inside the gland.