Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – A Somali Giraffe (Reticulata) at the zoo in Limestone, Tennessee, United States of America (USA), went viral on social media because it was born without spots or spots of a light brown polygonal pattern surrounded by a light colored line.
According to LiveScience, a brown female giraffe who was born on July 31, 2023 is claimed to be the rarest reticulata giraffe in the world. According to a statement, the giraffe is the only solid-colored reticulata in the world.
Although only a few weeks old, this long-necked mammal is already able to stand straight with a height of six feet or about 1.8 meters.
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Pictured: A zoo in Tennessee celebrates the birth of a rare unspotted giraffe, but a lack of patches could jeopardize its chances of survival. (Doc. brightszoo)
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The function of the spots on the giraffe’s body
According to the Denver Zoo, the spots on the body play an important role for the giraffe’s survival, especially in the wild. Because these colored spots are able to disguise giraffes from predators on the African savanna.
However, that is not the only function of a giraffe’s spots. According to the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, there is an ‘advanced network of blood vessels’ that branch to help the body lose heat.
Because they don’t have speckled markings, the rare baby giraffe, which doesn’t yet have a name, is more at risk of overheating.
“The wild population is slowly becoming extinct. About 40% of the wild giraffe population has disappeared in just the last three decades,” said the zoo’s founder, Tony Bright, in a statement, quoted Friday (25/8/2023).
Currently, the zoo is holding a naming contest for the rare giraffe via its official Facebook page.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
(hsy/hsy)