Animals that start with G

Giraffe

Get ready to laugh and learn with our hilarious giraffe facts! These gentle giants have more surprises than you can imagine. Perfect for curious kids. Ready to join Albert as he explores amazing giraffe facts for toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners? Click on the images to hear silly sounds and then read about giraffe elephant facts like what do giraffes look like?, what sound do giraffes make?, how big are giraffes?, what do giraffes eat?, where do giraffes live?, and more fun facts about giraffes for kids!

What do giraffes look like?

Giraffes are mammals. This means that they are warm-blooded, they feed their babies milk and they have fur.

They are very tall animals. They have long legs, quite a short body and then a very long neck and small head.

They are yellow-brown in color with very pretty markings. These colors and markings help to keep the giraffes camouflaged or hidden from predators.

What sound do giraffes make?

Click the the image to hear the sound!

Giraffes hum. Until recently, scientists thought giraffes made sounds that we could not hear. But they have now found that giraffes make a humming sound.

How big are giraffes?

Giraffes are the tallest land animal in the world.

Adult giraffes are between 16 and 20 feet (5-6 meters) tall.

A door in your house is about 2 meters tall, so if you imagine 3 doors all stacked on top of each other, then that will give you an idea of a giraffe’s height.

A newborn giraffe can be over 6 feet (2 meters) tall. That is as tall as an average adult person.

What do giraffes eat?

Giraffes are herbivores. This means that they only eat plants.

They mostly eat leaves from trees but the acacia tree is their favorite. They also eat some fruit.

Where do giraffes live?

Wild giraffes live in Africa on the open savannah grasslands and amongst trees and forests.

More fun facts about giraffes for kids

Giraffes only sleep for 5-30 minutes each day! They often sleep for 2 or 3 minutes at a time. That’s a very short nap. You probably sleep for about 10 or 11 hours each night.
The pattern on a giraffe’s fur is like a human fingerprint. No 2 giraffe’s patterns are the same. They are unique to each and every giraffe in the whole world.
Giraffes spend most of their lives standing up. They even sleep and give birth standing up.
Giraffes might be super tall, but they still only have 7 bones in their neck, just like us. The giraffe’s neck bones are just much longer than ours.
They can run up to 35 mph if they need to and can maintain an incredible speed of 31 mph for several kilometers. More often though they amble along much more slowly.
A giraffe’s tongue is fascinating! It is about 20 inches long or half a meter. This allows it to get grasp and pull leaves into its mouth. It is black or dark purple in color which protects it from sunburn. It is also very tough and thick. This protects it whilst the giraffe eats from the thorny acacia trees.
Oxpeckers are birds which often sit on giraffes’ backs eating ticks and other parasites. The birds get a tasty meal, and the giraffes get rid of their ticks

Sources: Wikipedia, Live Science, Creative Commons, Britannica.com and Freesound.org