The discovery, announced in an article published last month in the journal BMC Research Notes, has created a unique opportunity for scientists to study the effects of dwarfism on free-ranging wild animals.
The second giraffe to be discovered with a similar condition was even shorter, at just 8½ feet. Called Nigel, the Angolan giraffe was discovered in 2018, on a private farm in Namibia.
This is the first time dwarfism has been observed in giraffes. And while the animals have survived into adulthood, a study published recently by the BMC Research Notes journal says that limited mobility caused by shorter leg dimension might make these giraffe more susceptible to predation, even in the subadult/adult life stages. Anecdotal video evidence of giraffe movement in Namibia suggest that this giraffe experience difficulty in movement, with a limping gait, the study continues of the condition, whose cause is unknown as of yet.
Scientists Discover Short-Legged Corgi Giraffes
Photo: Emma Wells, GCF
Being extremely tall is sort of a giraffe’s whole thing. So when scientists recently spotted two wild giraffes with relatively short legs nearly halving their adult height they were stunned.
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“The initial reaction was a bit of curious disbelief,” said Michael Brown, a conservation biologist with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.
In 2015, Brown and his colleagues were conducting photographic surveys of the Nubian giraffes in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, monitoring the animals’ abundance and geographic distribution. Sometimes, said Brown, the team can see hundreds of giraffes in a single day.
He may be smaller than his relatives but Gimli is confounding scientists and stealing hearts.
Your average giraffe stands at around 16 feet tall, making them the tallest mammals on Earth.
Michael Brown is a conservation science fellow with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. He and his colleagues couldn t believe their eyes when they found a Nubian giraffe in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park in 2015 that was just 9 feet, 4 inches tall.
“The initial reaction was disbelief,” Dr. Brown said.
(Pic: Michael Brown)
Gimli the giraffe has the usual long neck, but his legs aren t. The scientists said it looked like someone had put a giraffe’s head and neck on a horse’s body.
Gimil and Nigel are two giraffes living in Africa that were born with dwarfism or skeletal dysplasia. The condition hindered their growth to no more than nine feet tall - the average giraffe is 18 feet tall.