Posted on 01/10/2021 8:06:15 AM PST by BenLurkin
The giraffe—nicknamed “Gimli,” in honor of the dwarf character from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings—had short legs but a typically proportioned neck, making it basically the corgi version of a giraffe.
Three years later, the team found another male giraffe named “Nigel” with similar proportions on a private farm in Namibia.
By carefully analyzing photos of these two giraffes, Brown and his colleagues measured the dimensions of the unusual giraffes’ limbs and necks, comparing them with those of other giraffes in their respective populations.
The researchers think the giraffes have skeletal dysplasia, which is any number of disorders that impact the growth of bone and cartilage, leading to dwarfism. Skeletal dysplasias are well-documented in humans and in many domesticated animals like dogs, cats, and cows. But stumbling upon the condition in the wild is exceedingly rare, and such encounters are seldom documented.
Reproduction for the two giraffes will be tricky at best. Their diminutive stature likely puts them at a disadvantage in sparring with other males for mates, and mating may be challenging when all the females are twice as tall.
It’s unclear exactly why this dwarfism has popped up in two different giraffe populations. Dysplasia has been seen in captive animals in cases of inbreeding and low genetic diversity. While there are more than 1,300 giraffes in the Ugandan population today, there were less than 80 a few decades ago after a precipitous decline. It’s possible that the legacy of this population bottleneck is a shallow gene pool, even today.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
Plant taller trees!
And a Russian billionaire has already placed an order for several.
“Opulence. I has it.”
The Nadler giraffe.
So a giraffes and a corgi mated?....
Here is a small giraffe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVxxLYmypv8
I was hoping for that....
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