The body is narrow and raised. The towering figure is able to reach delicious food on top of almost any tree. The giraffe extends just over four meters into the air. No other living mammal can boast such a height. But why did evolution want it that way? Many people have thought that access to food may be the cause of the long throat. But now a rather bizarre, prehistoric relative reveals a slightly different story. The long neck is designed to get something, but if it’s not about food, what can it be? Ladies, of course! 17 million year old fossils Since the days of Charles Darwin, the giraffe has been a textbook example of evolution. The earliest theories were that the neck developed in the struggle to reach the best raw materials. The longer the neck, the greater the benefit. But now researchers from China are casting doubt on this theory. They believe the long neck may have been created for completely different reasons. They have come to this conclusion by studying the strange giraffe-like creature “Discokeryx xiezhi”. Discokeryx also had a long neck, but not close to what the modern giraffe has. It also had a strange skull that resembled a kind of mismatched helmet. The fossils from the animal that the group of scientists analyzed are 17 million years old and were found in Xinjiang in China in the 90s. This is how it was imagined that the skull and cervical vertebrae of Discokeryx xiezhi looked like. Photo: Wang / Science Better suited for head fights than musk oxen – Discokeryx xiezhi had many unique properties among mammals, including a disk-like large ossicon in the middle of the head, says Professor Tao Deng in a press release. According to the researchers, the cervical vertebrae of this prehistoric creature must have been very powerful. By studying the link between the cervical vertebrae and the skull, they found surprising answers. When the muskrat fights, they clench their heads so that it rattles. But according to the new study, the giraffe’s ancestors may have been even better at head fighting. Photo: Roald Evensen / PRIVATE – This structure was very well adapted to head fights / head blows. It was far more effective than what is found on existing animals, such as muskrats, Deng explains. Therefore, the Chinese professor and his colleagues believe that the giraffe’s long neck has served as a kind of weapon in the battle to win the ladies’ favor. – Has always squirmed a little More specifically, the giraffe uses the two to three meter long, swinging neck to speed up its heavy skulls. This is how they can hurt the opponent. And the longer the neck, the greater the impact force. – The original hypothesis, that the neck became long for the giraffe to reach leaves high up, has always been a bit jarring. Zoologist Torfinn Ørmen tells news. – Giraffes usually eat with their necks horizontal, and then the head is not very much above shoulder height. He says today’s giraffes not only differ from living animals, but also from other types of giraffes. Including his now living, horse-sized relative okapi. – All the other giraffe animals have, and have over time had, a more common neck. May have been an added benefit Shi-Qi Wang is a paleontologist and part of the study. She says that if Discokeryx developed its special head to outcompete other males, it is possible that sexual selection also played an important role in the development of the relatives’ head and neck shape. – If one follows such a way of thinking, then the ability of giraffes to eat leaves at the top of the trees could have been a random side benefit, rather than a driving force, in the development of the animal’s long neck. The new study is published in the journal Science. An artist’s reconstruction of how both the giraffe and its ancestors fought fierce headaches. Photo: Wang Yu and Guo Xaiocong
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That’s why the giraffe’s neck has become so long – news Trøndelag
