Page 22 - FWG_Issue 1_Feb_2022

Nature

StretChing the

imagination

By James clarke and mary Broadley

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

“Taller than an elephant but not so thick”
– definition of the giraffe in Samuel Johnson's 1775 Dictionary of
the English Language.
here is no doubt that, if the giraffe were known only
through the discovery of its fossilised neck bones, it might
well have been deemed to be another bizarre creation of
Tthe weird Jurassic Period – the era that produced creatures
with the most unlikely necks.

Just before Christmas, the American Society of Vertebrate
Palaeontology, at its annual meeting in Minneapolis, revealed
details of a newly-discovered long-necked dinosaur that defies the
imagination.

Long-necked? Just two of its almost dustbin-sized vertebrae were
the length of an entire giraffe’s neck.

Fossil hunters now call it ‘Supersaurus’ – a name invented by a
fellow journalist reporting on the event. This new dinosaur is the
longest four-legged creature that has ever lived. It weighed around
60 tons and was at least 40m in length.

The first of its bones were discovered in the 1970s when they were
thought to be the remains of two dinosaurs. Now palaeontologists
believe they belonged to one animal.

Try to imagine this creature walking among city traffic, dwarfing
double-decker buses, haplessly squashing cars underfoot and
stretching to press its nose up against office windows five storeys
high.

Which brings me back to earth . . . and to our comparatively dainty
giraffe.

The good news is that the giraffe, the world’s tallest living
mammal, has strengthened its numbers over the last few years.
It is still ‘vulnerable’ according to the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List. The list categorises
animals according to their likelihood to become extinct. There are
nine categories – Not Evaluated, Data Deficient, Least Concern,
Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered,
Extinct in the Wild, and Extinct (dead and gone like the dodo).

Despite the upward trend in giraffe numbers – the animal is unique
to Africa – it is still in ‘urgent’ need of protection. This is according to
Masai giraffe
the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF), which advises the IUCN.

Fourways Gardens • 20 • February 2022