Reproduction
Once pregnant, a female giraffe has a gestation period of about 15 months and usually only has one young at a time, but can have up to eight in her lifetime. Females return to the same spot each year to give birth to their young. Giraffe have babies at all times during the year, but most of the births occur during the dry season. When born, baby giraffes fall seven feet to the ground, since mother giraffes birth standing up. Giraffe calves can weigh up to 200 pounds when they are born, and stand as tall as 6 feet. Baby giraffe can stand up less than half an hour after being born, and are able to feed from mother’s milk. Baby giraffe will continue to feed from the milk until they are about a year old. Calves can grow 9 inches during the first month, and continue to grow at an enormous rate during the first year. After that, growth slows to less than an inch per year. Giraffe are very herd oriented animals, and will even entrust the care of their young to the crowd. Females begin to breed at about 4 years, and males at about 10 years.
Read more about this topic: Somali Giraffe
Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “Artist.””
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“An original is a creation
motivated by desire.
Any reproduction of an original
is motivated by necessity ...
It is marvelous that we are
the only species that creates
gratuitous forms.
To create is divine, to reproduce
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—Man Ray (1890–1976)
“The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)