Page 13 - Dainfern Precinct_Issue1_2022

NATURE

STRETCHING THE

IMAGINATION

BY JAMES CLARKE, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARY BROADLEY

The Supersaurus

“There ain’t no such animal!” — Overheard at Bronx
Zoo when an elderly woman saw a giraffe for the first time in her life.

here is no doubt that, if the Try to imagine this creature walking giraffe left in the wild, yet it is today
giraffe were known only in city traffic, dwarfing double-decker more vulnerable to population
through the discovery of buses, haplessly squashing cars collapse than even the elephant
Tits fossilised neck bones, underfoot and stretching to press its whose African population is three
it might well have been deemed to nose up against office windows five times larger.
be another bizarre creation of the storeys high.
weird Jurassic Period – the era that The latest taxonomic changes divide
produced creatures with the most Which brings me back to earth... the giraffe into four species.
unlikely necks. and to our comparatively dainty
giraffe. Our South African giraffe, formally
Just before Christmas, the American named the ‘southern or reticulated
Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology, The good news is that the giraffe’ (Giraffa giraffa giraffa) is, by
at its annual meeting in Minneapolis, giraffe, the world’s tallest living far, the most plentiful.
revealed details of a newly- mammal, has strengthened its The foundation, the world’s only
discovered long-necked dinosaur numbers over the last few years. institution dedicated to monitoring
that defies the imagination. It is still ‘vulnerable’ according
to the International Union for the the status of the giraffe, says there
Long-necked? Just two of its almost Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) were 97 562 giraffe in 2016. Today,
dustbin-sized vertebrae were the Red List. The list categorises there are 117 173. That’s a 20%
length of an entire giraffe’s neck. animals according to their likelihood growth.
to become extinct. There are
Fossil hunters now call it nine categories - Not Evaluated, “Most importantly,” the foundation
‘Supersaurus’ - a name invented Data Deficient, Least Concern, reported, “numbers are increasing
by a fellow journalist reporting on Near Threatened, Vulnerable, across all of the recently defined
the event. This new dinosaur is the Endangered, Critically Endangered, four species. This is the first time
longest four-legged creature that Extinct in the Wild, and Extinct such trends have been reported in
has ever lived. It weighed around (dead and gone like the dodo). modern history.”
60 tons and was at least 40m in Our southern giraffe, the species
length. Despite the upward trend in giraffe
numbers – the animal is unique to found in Kruger Park whose south-
The first of its bones were Africa – it is still in ‘urgent’ need of eastern region is thought to have the
discovered in the 1970s when protection. This is according to the highest concentration of giraffe in
they were thought to be the Giraffe Conservation Foundation the world, is distributed throughout
remains of two dinosaurs. Now (GCF), which advises the IUCN. most parts of Southern Africa.
palaeontologists believe they They were decimated by hunters
belonged to one animal. There are now just over 184 000 and by loss of habitat throughout

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DPL