Giraffa camelopardalis
(Linnaeus, 1758) · speciesAt a glance
Sources13 archives
Databases and archives Giraffa camelopardalis's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation18 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 605 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI75 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics73 specimens↗
LOTUSNatural Products (Wikidata)compounds↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The giraffe is a tall African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus Giraffa. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant- hoofed herbivorous- on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, Giraffa camelopardalis, with nine subspecies. Most recently, researchers proposed dividing them into up to eight extant species due to new research into their mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, as well as morphological measurements. Seven other extinct species of Giraffa are known from the fossil record. The giraffe's chief distinguishing characteristics are its extremely long neck and legs, its horn-like ossicones, and its spotted coat patterns. It is classified under the family Giraffidae, along with its closest extant relative, the okapi. Its scattered range extends from Chad in the north to South Africa in the south, and from Niger in the west to Somalia in the east. Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and woodlands. Their food source is leaves, fruits, and flowers of woody plants, primarily acacia species, which they browse at heights most other herbivores cannot reach. Lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, and African wild dogs may prey upon giraffes. Giraffes live in herds of related females and their offspring, or bachelor herds of unrelated adult males, but are gregarious and may gather in large aggregations. Males establish social hierarchies through "necking", combat bouts where the neck is used as a weapon. Dominant males gain mating access to females, which bear sole responsibility for raising the young. The giraffe has intrigued various ancient and modern cultures for its peculiar appearance, and has often been featured in paintings, books, and cartoons. It is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction and has been extirpated from many parts of its former range. Giraffes are still found in numerous national parks and game reserves, but estimates as of 2016 indicate there are approximately 97,500 members of Giraffa in the wild. More than 1,600 were kept in zoos in 2010.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology3
Life cycle & reproduction8
Diet & foraging3
Habitat & environment2
Physiology & chemistry3
Other traits5
Compounds documented for Giraffa camelopardalis across natural-product and food-composition databases — not just the ~150 nutrients on a classic label ("nutritional dark matter").
Compound class profile4 classes
Documented compounds10 total
| Compound | Class | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4-Methylphenol | present | LOTUS | |
| Benzaldehyde | present | LOTUS | |
| Heptanal | present | LOTUS | |
| Indole | present | LOTUS | |
| myristate | present | LOTUS | |
| Nonanal | present | LOTUS | |
| Octanal | present | LOTUS | |
| Octane | present | LOTUS | |
| palmitate | present | LOTUS | |
| Skatole | present | LOTUS |
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Giraffa camelopardalis has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Giraffa camelopardalis carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Giraffa camelopardalis. Above itBeside it, the bars count how many dated finds fall in each slice of time; the tallest bar is labelled, and heights use a square-root scale so that thin slices stay visible next to rich ones. Read this as how well each stretch of time is preserved and studied — thick bars mean plenty of the right kind of rock and plenty of collectors, which is related to, but not the same as, how common it actually was. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
The two clocks disagree here. The fossil record reaches back to 5.33 Ma, but the molecular clock dates the lineage to only 0.92 Ma — about 4.41 Myr younger. A fossil cannot be older than the lineage it belongs to, so one of the two is off: either the fossil is assigned to the wrong species, or the clock is running fast.
How it livedPBDB
Record type1 628 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions20 of 27 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Seattle, US | 7 |
| Bonn, DE | 7 |
| Cambridge, US | 6 |
| CASlocation not on record | 6 |
| Stockholm, SE | 6 |
| Provo, US | 3 |
| München, DE | 3 |
| Los Angeles, US | 3 |
| Geneva, CH | 3 |
| Albany, US | 3 |
| Buenos Aires, AR | 2 |
| 2 | |
| Denver, US | 2 |
| Saint John, CA | 2 |
| Muzeum Górnośląskie w Bytomiulocation not on record | 1 |
| South Kensington, GB | 1 |
| Washington, US | 1 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| NTNU-VMlocation not on record | 1 |
| Iowa City, US | 1 |
| Ohio State University - Mammal Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 1 |
| University of Wisconsin, Zoological Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| East Lansing, US | 1 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 1 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 1 |
| Chicago, US | 1 |
| Berkeley, US | 1 |
Where the DNA of Giraffa camelopardalis was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.