Giraffes are the tallest mammals and herbivores in the world, reaching a height of up to 6 meters. Its scientific name is Giraffa camelopardalis. They are native to the African continent and as a curious fact, they are one of the few animals on the planet that face lions, for their survival. They are also high-speed animals, reaching 50 km per hour when stamped.
Do you find this special animal interesting? Do you know how the giraffe behaves when it sleeps?
How giraffes sleep – the answer
Over many years scientific studies have been conducted on various groups of giraffes in Africa, in fact they have been carried out for more than a century. Many of them determined that these interesting animals sleep little, and they do so in periods of about 10 minutes, completing a total of 2 to 4 hours a day. Generally, giraffes sleep standing up, with the exception of giraffes that are very weak or sick and the youngest in the group, as well as when they feel really safe and calm.
Giraffe pups sleep lying with their heads resting on their butts. Along its neck and the space between its vertebrae, the giraffe can bend its neck in curious ways, allowing it to sleep with its neck fully bent and resting on its thighs, on its butt or on the ground.
Why giraffes sleep standing up
Giraffes sleep standing up because of the possible presence of predators, so that they are not caught off guard and, in this way, they have the opportunity to flee or face the threat more easily than if they were lying on the ground.
However, as we have already indicated, they also sleep lying down or sitting, but when they do, they always have one eye open and take glances from time to time, this being a way to remain alert in case there is an attack from their predators.
Curiosities of the giraffe
In giraffes, we might think that because of their large size they should not sleep standing up, as it would generate physical fatigue. However, the locking system of their joints allows them to minimize the effort that the muscles must make to sleep standing or standing. Below we have other curious facts about giraffes:
- They sleep between 2 hours and 4 hours a day, with sleep periods of between 10 to 15 minutes.
- This sleeping animal usually sleeps with one eye open.
- The tongue of giraffes reaches 50 cm in length and they are insensitive to the spines that contain the leaves and branches with which they feed.
- They have a very long and flexible neck, due to their seven vertebrae.
- Males are taller and heavier than females.
- They usually walk in packs, but usually males go with other males and only look for females to mate.
- Giraffes are each and every one totally unique, that is, none is identical to another, since their spots on the skin represent what fingerprints would be in humans.
- In general, they are very docile.
- They use their legs and neck as combat weapons.
- The males dispute the territory and the order of mating by beating each other with their long necks.
- They drink little water and when they do, they must bend the front legs or open them wide.
- The sexual maturity of the giraffe is reached from the age of 6.
- The gestation period of giraffes is 15 months and they have only one offspring per birth. The female stands up and the calf falls to the ground from about two and a half meters, although, of course, they are prepared for it.
- They are animals that have 4 stomachs and are in the class of ruminant animals.
Other animals that sleep standing up
In general, animals that sleep standing up are large, and those that would have a hard time standing up from where they are lying down when fleeing an attack. This type of sleep experienced by animals that sleep standing up is not a deep sleep, but rather a type of slow-wave sleep.
Large mammals have a locking system on their legs at the level of the joints. In fact, they possess strong ligaments and tendons that allow you to relieve the weight of the muscles. They use the technique of distributing the weight leaving a free leg resting on the hoof or helmet.
Among the mammals that sleep standing we have:
- Moose.
- Bison.
- Buffalo.
- Donkeys.
- Horses.
- Deer.
- Elephants.
- Giraffes.
- Wildebeest.
- Reindeer.
- Rhinos.
- Cows.
Birds can sleep standing and on one leg. This is due to a flexor tendon that when the claw rests on a branch, closes it fixedly, although there are also those who sleep like this on the ground. Among these animals we can mention the following:
- Canaries.
- Storks.
- Flamingos.
- Hens.
- Seagulls.
- Pigeons.
- Ducks.
- Turtledoves.
If you like this type of curiosities in the animal world, we recommend these other oneHOWTO articles in which you can discover how other animals sleep:
- How rabbits sleep
- How whales and dolphin’s sleep.
- How sharks sleep.
If you want to read similar articles to How giraffes sleep, we recommend that you enter our category of The Animal World.