Do giraffes have long necks to reach the leaves or to fight other males?

Question

If it is for leaves then why don't the other herbibores starve because they don't have long necks?

Answer 1

It's to impress female giraffes. The males have been known to brag about how long their necks are.

Answer 2

Both! Read on!

The long neck allows a giraffe to eat from the tops of trees. However, since female giraffes are not as tall as male giraffes and tend to feed from much lower heights than their male counterparts, it is hard to say that they need the long necks for metabolic reasons. Furthermore, the additional length that helps a giraffe reach the top food sources makes it difficult for the same creature to drink. While the ecological niche which at least male giraffes utilize is only used by a single other species, the African Elephant, there have been no selective forces to maintain the length of the giraffe's neck.[citation needed] It may be that the long neck originally evolved when the benefit of filling the ecological niche was more pronounced due to the presence of other, now extinct, giant ungulates in Africa. Today, the maintenance of the giraffe's neck length is more an example of neutralist selection than of "survival of the fittest".[citation needed]

In addition to the remarkably long neck, giraffes have enlarged forelegs. These legs make it possible for giraffes to move swiftly and defend themselves against predators.

It has been observed that males use their long necks not only for feeding, but also for combat and competition. Indeed, sexual dimorphism is strongly represented among giraffes, with females having shorter, lighter necks than males. A female's neck and head mass will level off after about ten years of age, while a male's will continue to increase throughout its twenty-plus years of life. The males engage in necking combat. These battles can be fatal, but are more often less severe. The longer a neck is, and the heavier the head at the end of the neck, the greater force a giraffe will be able to deliver in a blow. It has also been observed that males that are successful in necking have greater access to estrous females, so that the length of the neck may be a product of sexual selection.[4]

Answer 3

Both.
The giraffes eat leaves on the top of the branches 'cause those are the newest and have more moisture, so the short-necked herbivores just have to eat what they can reach on the low branches.
The long necks are useful in fighting as well as feeding. the "horns" on the top of their head are actually VERY hard and can inflict great damage, so by having longer necks the male giraffe can swing his horns at the opponent and hit spots whereas the short necks can't reach and have a better chance at winning the girl (or whatever he is trying to get)

Answer 4

The giraffe's ability to reach high foliage simply means that in evolutionary terms it has adapted to its own niche. It means that it does not have to compete for ground foliage with all the other herbivores.

A logical scenario is that millions of years ago there may have been massive droughts lasting centuries. The grasses wilted, but the trees, with their long roots managed to reach deep springs and survived. The predecessor of the giraffe, already with a longish neck, suffered, but found that those born with slightly longer necks survived longer to reach breeding age and thus deliver their "longer neck" genes to their descendents.

Over the centuries of the drought, these proto-giraffes got longer and longer necks, as progeny with longer necks survived in greater numbers to maturity.

If there is one obvious thing in the evolutionary process, it is not so much does the animal survive, but does it survive to breed successfully. That is the cruncher.

Then the huge muscular neck would become a weapon between males competing for territory and females. And this directly helps the evolution of the big neck, in that in a million giraffe battles, the bigger, stronger necked giraffes predominate and become the prime breeders, thus continuing to long-necked gene into eternity (or until humans finally wipe these beautiful animals out of existence).

Answer 5

Giraffes' necks have evolved to reach more leaves than their predecessors. They also use them to fight other giraffes along with their legs/hooves.

Other herbivores don't starve because they don't try to eat the same leaves as giraffes. Each species has its own niche.

Answer 6

I used to think it was for leaves, then I thought about all the times I saw giraffes fighting. ALL THE TIME, right? Yeah, you always go to the zoo and the giraffes are duking it out with kung-fu neck combat.

Oh wait, that's not right at all. OF COURSE it's for leaves. Other herbivores (notice correct spelling) don't have to have long necks. Each species on earth adapted its own advantages not because they *required* them to survive at all, but because it gave them an advantage.

Answer 7

Giraffes have long necks (and tounges for that matter) to eat from the tops of the trees. Other animals have found suitible alternatives for eating such as eating grass. As for fighting, males do fight with both their long necks and their stubby horns.

Answer 8

That is because Giraffes likeable plants would have been on top most part of a tree..and they strived to eat only those and eventuall after million of years would have evolved having the largest necks.

Answer 9

because maximum leaf eaters can attain leafs at decrease ranges. Giraffes advanced in an ecosystem that had a lot less nutrition in route of the floor, and more suitable important nutrition up extreme. Evolution did not "recognize" something. The animal itself adapted to that is surroundings. in case you moved all the giraffe nutrition from the tops of tall timber and purely allowed them to feed from low places.... then you definitely quick-ahead some million years.... and it really is a sturdy danger that the surviving generations may ADAPT to the replace interior the surroundings both by skill of shrinking the neck or doing something else to make getting nutrition a lot less stressful from decrease places. once you've questions about evolution i propose the e book "the superb instruct on earth" by skill of Richard Dawkins

Answer 10

Giraffes occupy the ecological niche of eating from the tops of trees. It's fairly obvious their necks evolved longer and longer over millions of years.