To understand how giraffe neck changed over the time, researchers compared the fossil neck bones of modern giraffes with those of their relatives and their ancestors. Unlike their ancestors, these two species presented elongated necks that were more or less similar to modern giraffe necks.
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It shows that rather than stretching consistently over time, the necks of the giraffe ancestors grew in in stages millions of years apart. [In Photos: See Cute Pics of Baby Giraffes].
The only living relative of the giraffe is the Okapi, a odd creature that makes its home in central Africa.
As the researchers put it, writing in their report published in the October. 7 issue of the journal Royal Society Open Science, “the most distinguishing and popular attribute” of giraffes is “apparently not a defining feature of the family”.
Solounias, along with Melinda Danowitz, from the school’s Academic Medicine Scholars program, studied 71 fossils of nine extinct and two living species in the giraffe family.
The researchers focused on the third cervical vertebra of each species, and compared the modern animals’ vertebrae with those of their ancestors. They found that the giraffes have vertebrae measuring up to 10 inches in length. “The lengthening started before the giraffe family was even created 16 million years ago”, said Danowitz.
A new research give answer for why the Giraffe’s necks are long.
The researchers described the extremely early origins of the giraffe’s long neck as “unexpected”. A new study suggests that giraffe’s iconic neck occurred in several stages around 16 million years ago.
First, exclusively the front side small portion giraffe’s fretboard prolonged in a number of class. The second section was in fact the elongation of a given back segment of backbone the bones.
‘The second stage was the elongation of the back portion of the C3 neck vertebra.
“It’s interesting to note that that the lengthening was not consistent”, said Solounias.
“In the beginning you had an anterior [front] elongation, and then later, you had a posterior [back] elongation”, Solounias explains.
The first stage of transformation began around 7 million years ago when cranial end of the vertebra of the species known as Samotherium stretched. One idea is that it helped the animals graze on leaves high above the heads of other herbivores.
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“That’s when we saw the stages playing out”, said Danowitz. Other species of giraffe only got part of the trait.
