Animals that 
Stand Out 
in a Crowd

by Lynn Hofland

Giraffes truly do stand out in a crowd. At the zoo or in their natural habitat of Central Africa, they tower above other beasts, and are the second largest land animals alive today (the African elephant is the largest). The length of the giraffe's neck has intrigued observers down through the years. "How did the giraffe get its long neck?," some ask.

On witnessing a 3-meter (10 foot) shoulder high giraff stretch its 2.5 meter (8 foot) neck to its limit, and then add almost another foot with its long grasping tongue for that seemingly out-of-reach branch high in an acacia tree, some might believe that the stretching process drove the growth process for the giraffe's neck. But really, is a giraffe capable of adding anything to its stature?

    If one feature did change, would it not affect the whole? Let's consider the giraffe.

The giraffe is a mammal, therefore much of its anatomy is similar to that of other mammals. Like most other mammals, the giraffe has seven neck bones. What if it did not nave seven bones between the shoulders and the base of the skull? Man's short neck supports a perfectly balanced head in the erect posture with very little effort. The giraffe's huge head must be held aloft at all times. When standing, nearly half of its approximately 225-kilogram (500 pound) neck muscles are in tension. The amount of muscle required is directly related to the number of joints that must be supported. Reducing the joints to just two, at the skull and at the chest, would reduce the weight considerably and require less energy for survival. If the shortage of food drove the neck to change, would not the number of neck bones and joints be changeable also by such evolutionary processes? Of course the problem with this design would be a loss of flexibility, and would severely increase breakability if the giraffe received a blow to the head or neck.

In the same respect, having a megajointed neck would require the exact opposite - greater energy use and greater muscle mass to be supported. This would cause the giraffe's centre of gravity to shift ahead of the front legs when the head is extended straight forward, causing the hind legs to come off the ground - assuming the front legs were strong enough. Seven neck bones is excellent design.

With the head being so high in the air, the huge heart of the giraffe must be capable of delivering sufficient oxygenrich blood three meters (10 feet) up to the brain. This would be a problem (involving too high blood pressure) when the giraffe was head-down drinking water, were it not for a unique collection of reinforced artery walls, by-pass and antipooling valves, a web of small blood vessels (the rete mirabile, or 'marvelous net')' and pressure-sensing signals that keep adequate blood flow to the brain at just the right pressure. Even to those who consider this as just adaptation to high gravitational pressures in its cardiovascular system, the giraffe is unique.

The giraffe's heart is probably the most powerful among animals, because about double normal pressure is required to pump blood up the giraffe's long neck to the brain. With such high blood pressure, only special design features prevent it from 'blowing its mind' when it bends down to take a drink.




The lungs work in conjunction with the heart to supply the giraffe with the necessary oxygen, but in a way that is unique to the giraffe. The giraffe's lungs are eight times the size of those of humans, and its respiratory rate is about one-third that of humans. Breathing more slowly is necessary in order to exchange the required large volume of air without causing windburn to the giraffe's rippled 3.6 meters (12 feet) of trachea. When the animal takes in a fresh breath, the oxygen-depleted previous breath cannot be totally expelled. For the giraffe this problem is compounded by the long trachea that will retain more dead air than man can inhale in one breath. There must be enough lung volume to make this 'bad air' a small percentage of the total. This is a physics problem that the giraffe has solved.


To add to the wonder, the birth of a newborn giraffe seals the case for intelligent design. The new calf drops into life from 1.5 meters (five feet) up, as the mother is incapable of comfortably squatting to the ground, and to lie down during birth would be a sure invitation for a lion or other predator to attack the mother. As in all mammals, the head is disproportionately large compared to the rest of the body at birth, and it becomes a challenge to pass it down the birth canal.


This is a perfect exit, that would be impossible in any other combination or with any other new length of neck. Within minutes the new calf is gracefully standing between the mother's legs. From birth to adulthood in just four years, the neck grows from being one-sixth to one-third of the giraffe's total height. Such growth is required for the animal to overcome its leg height and to bend to get a drink of water. The calf's first year of food is almost exclusively its mother's rich milk, which can be reached easily.

Ecologically, the giraffe is perfectly matched to its environment. There is need of a tree trimmer to keep the fast-growing shade trees from overshadowing the ground and killing the muchneeded grass that provides food for the other savanna animals. There is also need of a sentinel that can see above the tall grass and observe the movements of the predator cats. The giraffe is not only tall enough for this, but has excellent eyesight and a curious disposition. After warning other animals with several swishes of the tail, the giraffe boldly strides out of harm's way. The great body height, tough skin layers, deadly rear hoof kick, and long, rapid stride make the adult giraffe an undesirable prey for any carnivore.



We cannot know that conditions were the same in the past, but the "need to survive by reaching ever higher for food" is, like so many Darwinian explanations of its kind, little more than a post hoc speculation. The fossil record confirms this, and the unique and marvelous design seen in this animal verifies it. The praise, glory and honour goes to the giraffe's Creator.


1. Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, Of Pandas and People, Haughton Publishing Company, Dallas (Texas), 1989, p. 71.

2. Alan R. Hargens, Developmental Adaptations to Gravity/Cardiovascular Adaptations to Gravity in the Giraffe, Life Sciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center (California), 1994, p. 12.

3. Helen Roney Sattler, Giraffes, the Sentinels of the Savannas, Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Books, New York, 1979, p. 22.


LYNN HOFLAND, B.S.E.E., is an Environmental Test Engineer at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. He and his wife home-school their three children, and started "Stiffneck Ministries" five years ago to provide a library of creationist material to other homeschoolers.

"Giraffes: Animals that Stand Out in a Crowd"

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