Neck: One of the distinguishing characteristics of a giraffe is its long neck. This allows giraffes to reach the highest leaves and shoots up in the Acacia tree (their favourite food source), which others browsers cannot reach, whilst also keeping an eye out for predators from their vantage point. The neck is also used for ‘necking’ in Bulls. This is a ritualised fight that appears to help establish dominance, and involves repeatedly swinging their neck to deliver head-butts to the other bull on their body and belly. The giraffe’s neck has a very complex system that regulates their blood pressure, ensuring that plenty of blood gets to their brain but not too much when they bend down to take a drink.

Horns: Giraffes' horns are actually known as ossicones and are found in both males and females, they are formed from ossified cartilage and covered in skin and hair. Both males and females are born with their ossicones but they lie flat at birth and are not attached to the skull in order to avoid injury to themselves and the mother, fusing to the skull as they grow older. Interestingly male giraffes often have thicker ossicones than females, which become bald on top due to frequent necking.

Spots: Each giraffe has a pattern of spots that is completely unique to them, much like a humans’ fingerprint. Their spots also have far more use than the obvious camouflage they provide and around each spot is a large blood vessel which branches off in a complex system of blood vessels underneath the spot. A giraffe can send blood through these smaller blood vessels into the middle of each patch to release heat from the body.

Giraffes use very little communication that can be heard by humans. Mothers will occasionally whistle to warn or call their young but most communication is done infrasonically, with moans and grunts far too low for humans to hear. Giraffes also communicate through different positioning of their eyes and will use prolonged stares to warn other members of the herd to danger.

Giraffes are vital to keeping ecosystems in balance. They eat the browse that others cannot reach, which promotes growth of forage and opens up areas for themselves and other smaller browsers to make use of. Importantly this means that by protecting Africa’s giraffes, we are protecting other species too. Giraffes lives are so intertwined with Acacii trees that some seedlings do not germinate until they have passed through a giraffe's digestive system.