Page 38 - SilverLakes_Issue 1_2022

NATURE

South Africa’s giraffe
STRETCHING THE IMAGINATION

By James Clarke and Mary Broadley

“There ain’t no such animal!” – Long-necked? Just two of its almost underfoot and stretching to press its nose
overheard at Bronx Zoo when an elderly dustbin-sized vertebrae were the length of against office windows five or even six
woman saw a giraffe for the first time in an entire giraffe’s neck. storeys up.
her life.
Fossil hunters now call it “Supersaurus”, Which brings me back to earth... and to our
“Taller than an elephant but not so a name invented by a fellow journalist comparatively dainty giraffe.
thick” – definition of the giraffe in Samuel reporting on the event. This new dinosaur
Johnson’s 1775 Dictionary of the English is the longest four-legged creature that has The good news is that the giraffe, the world’s
Language. ever lived. It weighed around 60 tons and tallest living mammal, has strengthened
was at least 40 metres in length. its numbers over the past few years. It is
here is no doubt that if the giraffe still vulnerable, according to the
were known only through the The first of its bones were discovered in International Union for the Conservation
Tdiscovery of its fossilised neck the 1970s, when they were thought to of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List. The list
bones, it might well have been deemed to be the remains of two dinosaurs. Now categorises animals according
be another bizarre creation of the weird palaeontologists believe they belonged to to their likelihood to
Jurassic Period – the era that produced one animal. become extinct.
creatures with the most unlikely necks.
Try to imagine this creature walking in
Just before Christmas, the American city traffic, dwarfing double-decker
Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology, at its buses, haplessly squashing cars
annual meeting in Minneapolis, revealed
details of a newly discovered long-necked
dinosaur that defies the imagination. The Supersaurus

36 | INTRAMUROS FEBRUARY 2022