Giraffe Differences

The earliest ancestors of the giraffe were the Samotherium major. This animal was similar to a giraffe it just had shorter legs and a shorter neck. It looked more like a deer. It lived in the open woodlands of Eurasia. The trees in that are were getting taller so it was harder for them to eat. The food on the ground was also scarce so that made it even harder to get food. They kept reaching their necks higher and higher.

The males could have had a genetic mutation that made their neck longer which made them stronger. Then the females wouldn’t be able too get their food as easily so they couldn’t survive. When they breed the males genetic pattern would get passed on to their offspring. Or instead of their necks growing it could have been their legs. Their legs grew which gave them more height to eat the leaves off of the other trees. Or it could have been a combonation of both their neck and their legs which made it even easier to reach the trees.

Giraffes didn’t always look like girrafes. They’ve gone through many changes. There’s the okapi it was much smaller than the giraffe now. It had a way shorter neck and shorter legs. It is brown in color and it’s legs ressemble the pattern of a zebras. It looks sort of like a deer with a

It lived in modernday Kenya. They did have antlers like a deer it’s body shape was like a deer also just a little taller. These animals grew to be four feet tall. This species lived fifteen million years ago in the in the miocene epoch. There was also the giraffa jumae which was most likely the direct ancestor to the modernday giraffe. They grew about one foot taller than giraffes today though. It lived thirteen million years ago. It looks almost exactly like a modernday giraffe. Except it’s spots were bigger and covered most of its hair. Its horns were also slanted back more and not sticking straight up like giraffes todays