SAM: Today, we get to
work with these beautiful
amazing animals.
They're reticulated giraffes.
How cool.
What a fun challenge!
Welcome to the party!
There's two! Oh!
Come on. Woah!
So cute!
Hey Everybody!
Today, we're in
the African Savanna.
Just kidding.
We're in the Maryland Zoo
with Robin and Becca and
reticulated giraffes, right?
That's what they are?
ROBIN: Yup, absolutely.
SAM: And we're going to be
feeding them romaine and
acacia leaves?
ROBIN: Yup acacia
leaves, that's right.
SAM: Cause that's
their favorite, right?
ROBIN: Yeah, absolutely.
SAM: So yeah tell me how I
should operate this because
I've never fed a giraffe before.
ROBIN: Well, they will
absolutely take all that
food out of your hand.
So you can give them
just a piece at a time,
just like that.
And she'll take that
with her long tongue
that she's got there...
SAM: How low is that tongue?
ROBIN: It's about
18 inches long.
So you can see
it's pretty long.
You also notice that
it's a funny color too.
SAM: Yeah.
ROBIN: Yeah, it's
not like our tongue.
So they have kind of
dark purple or blackish
pigmented tongue,
and it's actually to prevent
it from getting sunburned.
Since they'll be sticking
it in and out all day
browsing on the trees.
SAM: Ah that's so weird!
It's so long. It's
like another limb.
Hi...so is it, is it
a prehensile limb?
ROBIN: Yeah, exactly.
SAM: Woah.
ROBIN: So they're going
to be using their tongues
sort of as fingers.
As we would be using our
hands, or as primates would
use their tails kind of to
hold on to trees.
So she will actually be
able to rip an entire
branch off the trees
with all the leaves off.
SAM: Wow, that's incredible.
And this is baby
Willow, right?
ROBIN: Yeah,
she's pretty awesome.
She was our first giraffe
born here in about 20 years.
So we're really proud of her.
It's been awesome
working with her.
SAM: How old is she?
ROBIN: She's about a
year and a half now.
SAM: Hi. She's
so cute and tiny.
She's like much more
my height, than Anuli.
So do they have horns
on top of their head?
ROBIN: Very similar, yeah.
They actually have really
unique structure called
ossicones,
which are those horn-like
structures or boney structures
coming out of their head.
And both males and
females have it.
You can even see
baby Willow has hers.
SAM: Yeah.
Are they born with them?
ROBIN: They are.
Yeah so when they come in you
can see they are really,
really short you can just see
them...if you look at old
pictures of Willow she
actually almost has like
little pig tails from the hair
that's grown off the top of
it.
And they kind of lose a little
bit of that hair as they get
older and it sort of looks
like this, a little buzz cut.
SAM: It's really cool.
They're like the super
models of the Savanna.
ROBIN: Oh yeah.
SAM: That's what I think.
ROBIN: They're tall and
glamorous and have the lovely
long eyelashes.
SAM: And they kind of have
that strut where they're like
'look at me I'm majestic.'
ROBIN: Super-cool.
SAM: She's so tall.
So how tall is an
average giraffe?
ROBIN: About average would be
about 15 to 16 feet tall, and
that makes them basically the
tallest animal
out in the Savanna.
Sometimes elephants can be
a little taller, if they
stand on their hind feet.
But obviously they're not
going to be walking around
like that.
But that gives these
guys a huge advantage.
SAM: And how long
is just their neck?
ROBIN: Their neck is...woah!
SAM: Woah that scared me!
ROBIN: She was trying to
get your romaine there.
SAM: You scared me!
ROBIN: Their neck is
about 5 to 6 feet long.
And there's a really
cool fact about them.
Do you actually know
how many vertebrate
they have in their neck?
SAM: No, how many?
ROBIN: They have
7, so just like us.
Except much, much bigger.
SAM: Wow. That's so cool.
That's like a dinosaur.
ROBIN: Yeah.
SAM: You know, she really
doesn't have bad breath.
It doesn't bother me.
ROBIN: I mean
considering what they eat.
It's, you know, it's
pretty clean stuff.
SAM: Yeah.
This is an awesome
life I think...so cool.
I think that's her time.
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