Photo of the Day #57: Three giraffes, all in a row

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These three Reticulated Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata) were very intent on getting a free handout, and all lined up for this shot. Chances are that if you see a giraffe at a zoo, it's a Reticulated Giraffe, and out of these three the male is the darker, knobbly giraffe to the far right and the other two are females. There was also a young juvenile in this enclosure, and every year many zoos announce the birth of a new baby giraffe as they are very easy to breed in captivity. While I don't know of any specific breeding programs, the ease at which these animals breed in captivity and the fact that the Reticulated Giraffe can successfully breed with other giraffe subspecies could make them very important to population conservation in Africa.

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The male looks very different from the females, so I'm not sure if they're really all reticulated giraffes. Do you have any photos of the entire animals to quell my doubts?

The Singapore zoo has one Rothschild's giraffe and two Angolan giraffes, whereas the adjacent Night Safari has a small herd of South African giraffes.

Oh, and Darren Naish has hinted how giraffe taxonomy is probably a lot more complicated than it seems; splitting the species into nine subspecies is possibly not a very accurate interpretation of the true diversity of the genus.

http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/01/giraffes-set-for-change.html