🦒 Giraffe Feeding in Lion Country Safari, Florida, USA. Stand eye-to-eye at the feeding platform.

Stand eye-to-eye and take spectacular safari selfies with a giraffe at the feeding platform.

Giraffes are some of the most fascinating and unique animals on Earth. Here's a detailed overview of these tall, graceful creatures:
🦒 Basic Facts
Scientific Name: Giraffa camelopardalis (though recent studies suggest there may be several distinct species).
Common Name: Giraffe
Family: Giraffidae (shared only with the okapi)
Conservation Status: Varies by subspecies, but overall considered Vulnerable by the IUCN.
🌍 Habitat & Distribution
Native Range: Sub-Saharan Africa
Habitat: Savannas, grasslands, open woodlands—especially where acacia trees are abundant.
📏 Physical Characteristics
Height: Up to 18 feet (5.5 meters) — tallest land animals!
Neck Length: Around 6 feet (1.8 meters), with the same number of vertebrae as humans (7), just much longer.
Weight: Males up to 3,000 lbs (1,360 kg), females around 1,800 lbs (800 kg).
Tongue: Prehensile and about 18–20 inches (45–50 cm) long — often dark-colored to prevent sunburn.
Spots: Unique to each giraffe, like fingerprints; help with camouflage and thermoregulation.
🦷 Diet & Feeding
Diet: Herbivore — mainly leaves, buds, flowers, and fruits.
Favorite Trees: Acacias, which have thorns that giraffes skillfully avoid using their long tongues and prehensile lips.
Feeding Behavior: Can eat up to 75 pounds (34 kg) of foliage per day.
🧠 Behavior & Social Life
Social Structure: Live in loose, open herds; not territorial.
Communication: Use infrasonic sounds (below human hearing), body language, and sometimes vocal grunts or snorts.
Necking: Males engage in a behavior called "necking" to establish dominance—swinging their necks like hammers.
👶 Breeding & Calves
Gestation: About 15 months.
Birth: Calves drop around 6 feet to the ground at birth — they can stand and walk within an hour.
Calf Height: Around 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall at birth!
🧬 Interesting Adaptations
Heart: Weighs around 25 pounds (11 kg) and has thick muscular walls to pump blood up that long neck.
Valves in Veins: Prevent blood from rushing to the brain when they bend down.
Special Joint Adaptations: Help maintain posture and manage blood pressure.
🔍 Fun Facts
Sleeping: Giraffes sleep very little — sometimes only 30 minutes a day in short naps.
Running Speed: Up to 35 mph (56 km/h) in short bursts.
Vision: Excellent eyesight — can spot predators from a long distance.
Tail: One of the longest in the animal kingdom, up to 8 feet (2.4 meters) including the tuft.

Lion Country Safari opened in the summer of 1967 in rural Western Palm Beach County with dozens of free-roaming lions and a few other species. The drive-through safari park is believed to be the first cageless zoo in the country, introducing a new concept in zoology and bringing the experience of an African game park - then and now, an expensive and time-consuming trip - to families who would otherwise not be able to experience an African safari. South Florida’s Western Palm Beach County proved to be an ideal location for the park due to its year-round tropical climate, plentiful land, a growing population and tourists who visit from all over the world.

Lion Country Safari, West Palm Beach is a leader in Palm Beach County’s tourism industry, offering a unique and affordable opportunity to enjoy the largest drive-through safari in Florida. The park is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and has also been recognized as one of the top three zoos in America by USA Travel Guide, one of the ten best safari parks by USA Today, and Palm Beach County’s Top Local Attraction. The 320-acre attraction offers the drive-through safari, walk-through adventure park and award-winning KOA campground.

At Lion Country Safari, large herds of animals from 6 continents roam free, while humans visiting are enclosed (in their vehicles). Hundreds of WILD animals including lions, wildebeest, giraffe, the largest herd of zebras on record in North America, ostrich, chimpanzees and rhinos call Lion Country Safari home and roam wide-open, naturalistic habitats.

Lion Country Safari is involved in a number of sustainable efforts to reduce waste and use more ecofriendly products and also participates in many conservation and breeding programs (called Species Survival Plans) for threatened species, including rhinoceros, zebra, oryx, siamangs, and more. These programs help to ensure the survival of a healthy, sustainable population of threatened species in human care and help facilities like Lion Country Safari to act as lifeboats or figurative arks as wild populations decline and face extinction.
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Видео 🦒 Giraffe Feeding in Lion Country Safari, Florida, USA. Stand eye-to-eye at the feeding platform. канала Florida Slow Living