Giraffes and Okapi - Giraffes, The Okapi
animals cud species animal
Giraffes are a species of large, long-legged, long-necked ungulates in the family Giraffidae, order Artiodactyla. Giraffes are the tallest living animals on Earth. Okapis are a close relative, but these animals do not have such long legs or neck.
The giraffe is a widespread animal of grasslands and savannas of sub-Saharan Africa. The okapi is a much rarer animal and occurs in tropical forest.
Both species are exclusively herbivorous, mostly browsing the foliage of woody plants. These animals are ruminants, meaning they have a complex stomach divided into four pouches. Each of these sections is responsible for a particular stage of the digestion process. Rumination actually specifically refers to the chewing of the cud, which is a regurgitated mass of pre-digested plant matter from one of the fore-stomachs. The cud is re-chewed in a leisurely fashion, and then swallowed one last time, to undergo further digestion. The material then passes through the alimentary system, and nutrients are absorbed during this final passage, which is followed by defecation.
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The most distinctive characteristics of giraffes are their very long legs, and their enormously long neck. It is interesting that, compared with related families such as the deer (Cervidae), giraffes have the same number of neck vertebrae—the remarkable elongation of their neck is due solely to lengthening of the individual vertebrae. A short, dark mane runs along the top of the length of t…
The okapi, or forest giraffe (Okapia johnstoni), did not become known to European scientists until 1900, when a native pygmy hunter showed a striped-legged skin of this species to a British zoologist in what was then the Congo in central Africa. The discovery of this unusual large animal caused a quite a sensation among European naturalists and the public. As a result, many museums and zoological …
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