Giraffes More Speciose than Expected

Aaron Ashby

Until it was recently discovered, it was the belief that there was only one species of giraffes. Which is easy to understand because they are large unique mammals that look really similar to one another. Scientists from Senckenberg and a giraffe conservation foundation have recently put time into studying the genetic makeup of giraffes, and have made the discovery that there are four different species of giraffes instead of one. For the longest time giraffes were classified as one species with nine different subspecies that underlie the main classification of giraffe. These subspecies were based on different characteristics of the giraffe, that is their coat pattern, horn structure, and where they are geographically.

The most recent estimates of the giraffes population have shown that their numbers have gone down tremendously by 35% over the past 30 years. It was thought to be that this extinction was slowly occurring because people were hunting them down for their unique skins, as well as to place them in exhibits. At least that would be my guess. But through these studies and new discoveries it gives a more probable reason as to why the population of giraffes have slowly become extinct. It's because of the discovery of highly distinct genetic relationships among the giraffes that causes them not to be able to mate.  

The four distinct giraffe species are now listed as follows: (1) Southern Giraffe (2) Masai Giraffe (3) Reticulated Giraffe (4) Northern Giraffe. All of these four species have various subspecies that are listed in the article. Dr. Julian Fennessy who is the co-director for the giraffe conservation foundation adds, explains why finding out these new discovery of different giraffe species is important to know. She says “Now that we know that there are four giraffe species, it is even more important and urgent to support governments and other partners across Africa to protect giraffe.”

I found this article to be very interesting and easy to understand how it coincides with biology. With what we just talked about in recent weeks in class about different species and how various species cannot mate with one another, which can cause a decline in its overall population. We see this happening in real life with these giraffes, because this unwilling and not being able to mate is a major reason why these giraffes are slowly becoming extinct.

Source:

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2016/09/08/giraffes_more_speciose_than_expected.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+biologynews%2Fheadlines+%28Biology+News+Net%29