What are all adaptations giraffes have?

Question

I really need help with this
i need at least 3 adaptations that a giraffe has
i already researched everything i possibly could on yahoo and google i cant find anything can u give me the website where it was found i really appriciate it if u help
i swear ill give u 5 stars if u help me i SWEAR
i just need help fast thats all
thank u

Answer 1

What do you mean by an adaptation.
I would disagree with the answerer above who says the Giraffe's height is an adaption. It is a design feature.

There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the giraffe has 'evolved' (adapted?) from an ancestor with a short neck.

All giraffe fossils have long necks!
To claim that a transitional short necked fossil has not been found is to beg the question. The fact is giraffes are giraffes and have always been giraffes.
God is the master designer, of course.

So Haysoos above thinks the giraffe is not very well designed!
Funny how giraffes manage perfectly well to give birth in the wild - despite their design 'flaws'.
Let's see the evidence for alleged evolution and not a lot of hot air :)

The giraffe has unique design features regarding the joints and muscles in its neck, its lungs, and its method of giving birth. For example:

The giraffe is a mammal, therefore much of its anatomy is similar to that of other mammals. Like most other mammals, the giraffe has seven neck bones. What if it did not have seven bones between the shoulders and the base of the skull? Man’s short neck supports a perfectly balanced head in the erect posture with very little effort. The giraffe’s huge head must be held aloft at all times. When standing, nearly half of its approximately 225-kilogram (500 pound) neck muscles are in tension. The amount of muscle required is directly related to the number of joints that must be supported. Reducing the joints to just two, at the skull and at the chest, would reduce the weight considerably and require less energy for survival. If the shortage of food drove the neck to change, would not the number of neck bones and joints be changeable also by such evolutionary processes? Of course the problem with this design would be a loss of flexibility, and would severely increase breakability if the giraffe received a blow to the head or neck.

In the same respect, having a megajointed neck would require the exact opposite—greater energy use and greater muscle mass to be supported. This would cause the giraffe’s centre of gravity to shift ahead of the front legs when the head is extended straight forward, causing the hind legs to come off the ground—assuming the front legs were strong enough. Seven neck bones is excellent design.

With the head being so high in the air, the huge heart of the giraffe must be capable of delivering sufficient oxygen-rich blood three metres (10 feet) up to the brain. This would be a problem (involving too high blood pressure) when the giraffe was head-down drinking water, were it not for a unique collection of reinforced artery walls, by-pass and antipooling valves, a web of small blood vessels (the rete mirabile, or ‘marvellous net’)1 and pressure-sensing signals that keep adequate blood flow to the brain at just the right pressure. Even to those who consider this as just ‘adaptation to high gravitational pressures in its cardiovascular system’, the giraffe is unique.

To add to the wonder, the birth of a newborn giraffe seals the case for an intelligent design. The new calf drops into life from 1.5 metres (five feet) up, as the mother is incapable of comfortably squatting to the ground, and to lie down during birth would be a sure invitation for a lion or other predator to attack the mother. As in all mammals, the head is disproportionately large compared to the rest of the body at birth, and it becomes a challenge to pass it down the birth canal.

The baby giraffe has the added challenge of having a very fragile long neck attaching it to the rest of its 70-kilogram (150-pound) newborn body. If the head came out first, the neck would surely break when the rest of the body fell on top of it. If the head came out last, the neck would surely break as the body weight attempted to jerk the head out of the mother. Such an apparent impasse is solved by the rear hips being much smaller than the front shoulders, and the neck is just long enough to allow the head to pass through the birth canal resting on the rear hips. The hind feet exit first to break the fall on the rest of the animal, The head is supported and cushioned by the rear hips, and the neck is pliable, allowing a sharp bend around the front shoulders.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/960

Answer 2

Giraffes (like all organisms) have millions, possibly billions of adaptations. Every gene and every base pair of their DNA represents an adaptation of some sort.

There are some physiological adaptations that giraffes possess that are unique to giraffes, and help them to survive in their environment and with their unique anatomy.

Their most obvious adaptation is their incredible height. Most of this involves a tremendous lengthening of the proportions of their neck, making them the tallest living animal. The long neck is probably a result of sexual selection as males wrestle with their necks for the right to mate with a female, but it also affords them the ability to browse from really tall trees and see predators from a considerable distance.

To go with the long neck, giraffes have strong one-way valves in the blood vessels in their neck. This allows them to pump blood all the way up to their brains without having it all simply drain away (making them dizzy and faint), or having blood pressure that would make their other blood vessels explode.

They also have really, really long, tough tongues that allows them to strip tough leaves and branches from the trees they are browsing.

UPDATE:

In response to the 'design' arguments below:

While all of the currently known fossils we would classify as 'giraffes' do indeed have long necks, it is not totally correct to state that there are no transitional 'short necked' fossil ancestors known for giraffes.

Judging by shared comparative anatomy and genetic distance, the closest living relative of the giraffe is the okapi. The okapi is about the size of a horse, and has a considerably shorter neck than its giraffe relative. However, in comparison to other similarily sized mammals (i.e. horses), the proportion of the okapi's neck to the rest of its body is actually quite long. This feature alone provides good evidence for a transitional state between 'short' and 'long' necks. Other fossil relatives, such as Sivatherium show similarly long necks relative to the proportions of other mammal groups.

Yes, giraffes have seven neck bones, as is the common trait in almost all mammals (there are some sloths, manatees and dolphins that have different numbers). The fact that the giraffe has to compose its long neck out of this standard mammalian neck complement is actually a tremendous disadvantage to the giraffe. If mammals had an adaptation that allowed for easier serial homology of neck vertebrae (and especially ennervation), it would have a much lighter, more flexible neck. Claiming that more vertebrae would make for greater energy use and muscle mass is hogwash. Known long-necked creatures like most birds (i.e. swans), and especially large, long-necked creatures like the sauropod dinosaurs were able to form incredibly long, strong and flexible necks by utilizing serial homology to form multiple neck vertebrae.

The dinosaurs were also able to balance their neck with a long, heavy tail. Something the giraffe is unable to do, having inherited the small, fly-whisk tail of its hooved herbivore mammalian ancestors.

The rete mirabile is a co-evolutionary adaptation of the long neck. Transitional forms of the adaptation are also seen in the living okapi.

From a design perspective, the giraffe is a mess. The ennervation for the giraffe's larynx (which it barely uses) has nerves that start in the brain, go all the way down to the chest, and then back up to the larynx. If the animal were truly 'designed', this anatomical set-up makes no sense whatsoever.

However, from an evolutionary perspective, in which each variation is just an adaptation of existing features that existed in the organism's ancestors, all of these features make perfect sense.

The baby giraffe delivery system is a pretty good example of some really strong selective pressure. Any giraffe that wasn't born that way has a pretty good chance of injury or death. Not that surprising that evolution would select for the trait that aids survival.

If the creature were actually designed, you'd think the 'designer' would have made the female capable of squatting down. Could easily be done by adding a few extra joints in the legs. Apparently this 'designer' isn't very intelligent though.

Answer 3

Hi dear,
iam a doctor at Muthane university,specialist in vertebrata,i told you to write at each of google or yahoo the fellowing ''giraffe , characteristics + wikipedia".
Mercy

Answer 4

giraffe behavior adaptations

Answer 5

Sorry, I don't help with Homework assignments!

Answer 6

they adapted long necks to reach the leaves of trees, long gross tongues, the long legs too i guess...